AUGUSTUS 


AUGUSTUS 


HEROES  OF  ALL  TIME 


FIRST  VOLUMES 


Alexander  the  Great.    By  ADA  RUSSELL,  M.A. 
(Viet.) 

Augustus.    By  RENE"  FRANCIS,  B.A. 

Alfred  the  Great.    By  A.  E.  McKiLLiAM,  M.A. 

Jeanne  d'Arc.    By  E.  M.  WILMOT-BUXTON, 
F.R.Hist.S. 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh.    By  BEATRICE  MARSHALL. 
William  the  Silent.    By  A.  M.  MIALL. 


Other  volumes  in  active  preparation 


AUGUSTUS  BURNING   THE   PROSCRIPTION   LISTS 


AUGUSTUS 


HIS  LIFE  AND  HIS  WORK 


BY 


RENE  FRANCIS,  B.A. 


With  Frontispiece  in  Color  and  Eight 
Black-and-White  Illustrations 


NEW  YORK 
FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1914,  h 
FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 


All  Rights  Reserved 


H 


August,  1914 


Contents 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 13 

I.  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  REPUBLIC     .       21 

I.       HISTORICAL 

The  kings  and  Etruscan  rule — Rome's  enemies — 
Her  invaders — Her  rivals — She  possesses  Italy — 
Her  first  foreign  conquests. 

ii.     POLITICAL 

Kingship — The     Republic  and     its    constitution — 

The    tribunate    and    the  freedom    of    the    plebs — 

The  sovereignty  of  the  people — The  proconsuls 
and  foreign  commands. 

II.  THE  COMMENCEMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM   .     31 

Rome  in  134  B.C. — The  failing  Republic — The 
first  attack — The  Gracchi  and  their  work — The 
second  attack — Marius  and  Sulla — The  First 
Triumvirate — Julius  Caesar  and  the  fall  of  the 
Republic. 

III.  THE  MASTER  OF  ROME 52 

Caesar's  aim  and  his  work — His  authority  and 
position — His  opponents  and  their  reasons — His 
death. 

IV.  EXTINCTION  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  ....     60 

The  Liberators,  their  hopes  and  illusions — Antony 
and  Lepidus — The  appearance  of  Octavius — 
Octavius's  commencement — His  first  campaign 
against  Antony — The  second  Triumvirate  and 
the  death  of  the  Republic. 

5 


2135463 


Augustus 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

V.  THE  TRIUMVIRATE 71 

The  Reign  of  Terror — Philippi — Octavian  in 
Italy,  Antony  in  the  East — Octavian' s  work 
— Lucius  Antonius  and  the  fall  of  Perusia — 
Sextus  Pompeius — The  first  attack — Antony's 
first  menace — Reconciliation — Antony  and  Par- 
thia — Sextus  Pompeius  defeats  Octavian — Octavian 
crushes  Sextus  Pompeius — The  fall  of  Lepidus — 
Octavian  master  of  the  West. 

VI.  THE  BEGINNING  or  EMPIRE.      .     .      .     .     90 

Antony  and  Parthia:  the  'triumph'  over  Armenia — 
Cleopatra — Rome's  answer  to  Cleopatra  and  Antony 
— Actium — The  capture  of  Egypt  and  the  pacifi- 
cation of  the  East — Octavian  master  of  the  world. 

VII.  THE  PRINCIPATE 99 

Octavian  and  the  veterans — His  leniency — His 
task  and  his  capacity  for  it — Julius  and  Octavian 
— The  beginning — Purification  of  the  Senate — 
Purification  of  the  people — Octavian  lays  down 
his  'command' — The  power  regained  by  him: 
'Augustus' — His  position  and  powers  and  pre- 
rogatives— Creation  of  the  Principate,  23  B.C. — 
'The  Principate  dies  with  the  Prince.' 

VIII.  THE  FOREIGN  AND  MILITARY  POLICY  OF 

AUGUSTUS 117 

The  frontiers — The  abandonment  of  the  Elbe — 
The  arrangements  for  Parthia — The  army,  Roman 
and  auxiliary — Egypt,  the  key  to  kingship — The 
Imperial  department  and  the  provinces — The 
organization  of  the  provinces — Provincial  govern- 
ment, Imperial  and  senatorial — The  survey  and 
the  budget  of  the  Empire. 
6 


Contents 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

IX.  THE  HOME  POLICY  or  AUGUSTUS       .       .   137 

The  Senate  and  senatorial  rank  and  functions — 
The  assembly  of  the  plebs — The  populace  and 
the  wards — The  magistrates — The  Concilium}  or 
Privy  Council — The  Knights  and  the  Imperial 
Civil  Service — The  Italian  municipalities  and  the 
'Augustales' — Augustus  and  the  'caste'  system 
— Rome,  her  defects  and  her  internal  govern- 
ment under  Augustus:  Why  she  could  not  be 
municipalized — Augustus  and  his  'public  works' 
— Religion:  the  revival  and  the  reasons  for  it; 
the  dawn  of  Caesar-worship — The  poets  and  re- 
ligion— Literature  and  h  story :  the  value  of  the 
'Augustan'  writers  to  the  State  and  its  ruler 
— The  succession,  and  the  difficulty  of  Augustus's 
position — The  'habit'  of  Empire. 

X.  AUGUSTUS,  THE  MAN  AND  THE  PRINCE      .   158 

What  a  contemporary  might  think — Steevens' 
'Monologue'  of  the  Prince — The  character  of 
Augustus.  Was  he  an  artist  and  a  genius? — 'A 
part  well  played.' 

XI.  THE  MEANING  OF  EMPIRE 179 

Julius  Caesar,  his  character  and  his  work — Why 
Augustus  was  successful — The  necessity  of  empire 
for  Rome  and  the  inefficiency  of  the  Republican 
machinery — A  republic  and  its  limitations — An 
empire  and  its  possibilities — '  System '  and  '  business 
management'  in  the  State — The  debt  of  Rome  to 
Augustus. 


Illustrations 

PAQB 

AUGUSTUS  BURNING  THE  PROSCRIPTION  LISTS 

Frontispiece 

THE  SAVING  OF  THE  CAPITOL 24 

THE    YOUNG    GRACCHI    AND  THEIR    MOTHER 

CORNELIA 32 

THE  ASSASSINATION  OF  JULIUS  C^SAR        .        .     58 
THE  CATAPULT  .       .       .        .        .        .        .        .80 

AUGUSTUS   WEARING  THE   CITIZEN'S  CROWN  OF 

OAK-LEAVES  110 

AUGUSTUS  ADDRESSING  HIS  TROOPS  .  .   128 

VIRGIL    READING  TO    MAECENAS,   HORACE,   AND 

VARIUS 152 

IN  THE  TIME  OF  AUGUSTUS  .   164 


Prefatory  Note 

I  TRUST  I  have  shown  in  the  course  of 
this  book,  such  as  it  is,  why  in  the  case 
of  Augustus  personality  has  to  give  way 
so  greatly  to  politics.  Without  some  knowl- 
edge of  Roman  history  in  general,  it  is 
not  possible  to  realize  the  part  Augustus 
played  therein.  A  biography  of  him,  com- 
mencing with  his  birth  and  ending  with  his 
death,  would  have  very  little  value  as  a 
contribution  to  history,  nor  would  it  throw 
any  real  light  on  Augustus  himself.  I  have 
endeavoured  to  show  not  merely  what  manner 
of  man  Augustus  was  and  what  he  did  during 
his  life,  but  how  he  was  important  and  why: 
and  in  doing  so,  though  I  have  said  very  little 
about  his  successors,  I  have  been  compelled 
to  speak  at  some  length  about  his  pre- 
decessors. 

I  have  to  acknowledge  my  especial  indebted- 
ness to  the  Outlines  of  Roman  History  by  the 
late  Professor  Pelham — whose  lectures  it  was 
my  privilege  to  attend  when  at  Oxford — 
to  Firth's  biography  of  Augustus,  and  to  the 
late  George  Warrington  Steevens'  Monologues 


ii 


Augustus 

of  the  Dead.  The  latter  little-known  work 
should  be  far  more  widely  read,  as  it  gives  most 
fascinating  and  illuminating  pictures  of  several 
great  figures  of  ancient  history,  and  trans- 
forms their  dead  records  into  living  and  vivid 
— even  modern — personalities.  I  am  obliged 
to  Mr  Steevens'  literary  executors  for  per- 
mission to  quote  from  it. 

R.  F. 


12 


Introduction 

TO  those  who  have  no  more  than 
a  general  idea  of  the  history  of 
Rome,  the  name  Augustus,  or  even 
Octavian,  conveys  little  more  than  the 
memory  of  a  man  who  followed  Julius 
Csesar,  who  won  the  battle  of  Actium  against 
Mark  Antony,  and  who  was  the  first  Emperor 
of  Rome. 

And  indeed  Roman  history  itself,  without 
some  degree  of  study,  does  not  seem  to  present 
more  than  the  rise  of  a  big  republic  from  a 
small  town  on  the  hills,  then  a  general  con- 
fusion of  wars  and  horrors,  then  one  great 
luminous  figure,  Julius  Csesar,  and  after  him 
a  long  succession  of  emperors,  some  good 
and  many  bad,  and,  at  the  last,  a  general 
overthrow,  an  inrush  of  savage  Northern 
tribes  and  the  beginning  of  the  Dark 
Ages. 

But  when  we  look  more  closely  into  the 
history  of  Rome  we  begin  to  see  that  one 
thing  seems  to  lead  into  another,  that  there 
is  a  certain  chain  of  events  and  consequences, 
almost  inevitable  in  their  occurrence  and 

13 


Augustus 

development,  and  that  certain  changes  that 
came  about  were  essential  to  Rome's 
development. 

We  then  see  that  Julius  Caesar  was  not  in 
reality  the  Maker  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
great  as  were  his  deeds,  and  that  the  long  line 
of  emperors  did  not  commence  automatic- 
ally or  by  chance,  but  that  there  was  a  definite 
sequence  of  facts  and  modifications  that  led 
from  the  Republic  to  Julius  Csesar,  and  from 
Julius  Csesar  to  the  emperors.  And  we  see 
that  this  definite  sequence  was  due  to  an 
equally  definite  influence  that  brought  to  pass 
or  at  least  made  use  of  those  facts,  that 
contrived  those  modifications  in  a  certain 
way,  and  made  it  possible  for  the  emperors 
to  have  their  empire. 

And  when  we  look  for  that  influence,  we 
see  one  man,  Augustus.  And  the  more  we 
study  Augustus,  his  work,  and  his  life,  the 
more  clearly  do  we  see  how,  without  him 
and  all  he  did,  the  Roman  Republic  might 
have  been  forgotten,  Julius's  work  would 
have  been  undone,  and  the  long  line  of  Caesars 
never  would  have  existed. 

14 


Introduction 

The  life  of  Augustus  is  not  the  personal 
life  and  the  doings,  political,  historical,  or 
otherwise,  of  a  great  individual:  it  is  the 
embodiment  of  a  series  of  political  changes, 
from  autocracy  to  Imperialized  Republican- 
ism, in  and  due  to  the  person  of  one  man, 
whose  great  distinction  is  that  he  realized 
what  changes  were  necessary  and  how  he 
must  bring  them  about.  Though  we  cannot 
see  in  him  the  glory,  the  genius,  the  wonder, 
and  the  charm  of  his  great  ancestor,  we  can 
see  that  it  was  his  personality,  his  ability, 
and  his  special  genius  that  really  made  Rome 
great  and  kept  her  great  through  the  centuries 
during  which  she  ruled  the  world. 

The  biography  of  Augustus  is  then  in  reality 
a  political  even  more  than  a  personal  history, 
and  we  must  not  be  surprised  when  we  find 
that  a  study  of  him  involves  a  study  of  many 
things  and  people  before  and  even  after  him. 
Our  concern  will  be  not  so  much  what  he 
was  and  what  he  did,  as  how  and  why  he  did 
all  that  is  recorded  of  him. 

When  we  glance  at  Roman  history  we  see 
that  Rome,  after  a  brief  period  of  early 


Augustus 

kingship,  settled  down  to  republicanism, 
strong,  solid,  and  self-confident.  She  had 
all  the  elements  of  conquest  latent  within 
her;  she  beat  off  every  invader,  she  defeated 
every  opponent,  she  crushed  every  rival. 

Even  when  annihilation  seemed  to  threaten 
her  she  was  undismayed;  she  faced  the 
danger  and  overcame  it:  after  a  reverse  she 
rose  again,  all  the  stronger. 

We  see  that  she  possessed  the  gift  of  as- 
similation. The  Latins  and  then  the  Italians, 
and  at  last  the  whole  of  the  Italian  penin- 
sula, became  practically  Roman,  one  united 
whole  against  the  world. 

She  seemed  to  have  the  gift  of  world- 
conquest:  Africa,  Greece,  Asia,  partly  by 
conquest,  partly  by  alliance  and  friendship, 
came  under  her  influence. 

Then  suddenly  she  seemed  to  fail.  A 
series  of  adventurers  wasted  her  lands,  her 
money,  and  her  men.  At  last  a  leader 
greater  than  all  the  rest  arose,  and  for  a 
brief  space  she  held  the  world  and  was  at 
peace. 

Again  she  failed:  her  great  man  was  killed, 
16 


Introduction 

and  anarchy  arose  and  raged  once  more.  At 
length  came,  after  thirteen  long  years,  peace 
in  the  person  and  influence  of  one  other 
man.  Under  him  she  regained  all  that  she 
had  once  had,  and  yet  farther  extended  her 
borders.  And  after  him  she  widened  her  in- 
fluence still  farther:  but  her  republic  had 
given  place  to  an  empire. 

These  are  the  facts.  And  it  is  in  the  life  of 
the  one  man,  Augustus,  with  whom  the  present 
work  is  concerned,  that  we  shall  find  the 
key  to  them. 

Every  step  and  every  stage  of  the  life  and 
work  of  Augustus  deserve  study.  For  he  did 
not  invent  new  material  for  the  great  imperial 
framework  which  he  built  up;  he  used  the  old 
material,  the  elements  of  Rome.  And  he  did 
not  invent  any  totally  new  spirit  that  should, 
so  to  speak,  inhabit  this  framework;  he  used 
and  revived  the  ancient  spirit  of  Rome. 
But  he  used  both  materials  and  spirit  in  a 
new  manner:  where  they  had  meant  limita- 
tion he  gave  them  expansion;  where  they 
had  meant  rigidity  he  gave  them  elasticity. 
He  renovated  what  was  old,  and  he  gave  the 

17 


Augustus 

sanction  of  tradition,  the  illusion  of  age,  to 
what  was  new. 

However  clear  it  may  be  that,  after  his 
death,  Rome  was  no  longer  a  republic  but 
an  empire,  totally  changed,  totally  different 
from  anything  she  had  ever  been  or  had  even 
promised  to  be,  it  was  impossible  for  any  one 
to  say,  either  during  Augustus's  life  or  after 
his  death:  'Here  is  Revolution,  here  is 
Novelty,  here  is  Creation. '  For  what  he  had 
achieved  was  all  one  gradual  but  most  incom- 
parably thorough  and  efficient  reshaping  and 
remodelling  of  the  ancient  framework,  of 
which  no  single  fragment  was  wholly  rejected 
or  lost,  although  no  element  remained  exactly 
what  it  had  been  or  occupied  exactly  its 
original  position  or  influence. 

Tu  regere  imperio,  'Thou  shalt  reign  with 
command.'  Even  if  Virgil  was  not  thinking 
of  empire  as  we  know  the  word,  yet  he 
chose  the  right  word.  We  shall  see  during 
the  course  of  this  book  how  impossible  it 
was  for  Rome  as  a  republic  to  attempt  what 
she  achieved  as  an  empire;  and  we  shall  see, 

still  more  clearly,  how  impossible   it    would 

18 


Introduction 

have  been  for  her  to  be  an  empire  had  she 
not  had  Augustus. 

Without  Augustus  surely  the  epitaph  of 
Rome  would  have  speedily  been  written; 
and  that  epitaph  would  have  been,  like  that 
of  her  legendary  mother-city,  Roma  fuit: 
'Rome  has  been  and  now  is  not.' 

In  conclusion  we  must  remember  not  only 
that  Augustus  made  an  empire  and  made  it 
out  of  the  fragments  of  a  republic,  but  also 
that  he  gave  that  empire  stability.  Even 
though  it  changed,  tottered,  staggered,  was 
divided,  became  Christian  instead  of  pagan — 
and  that  was  indeed  a  pouring  of  new  wine 
into  old  bottles — it  was  never  overthrown 
from  within. 

The  one  force  which  could  and  which  did 
conquer  Rome  was  the  force  from  without, 
the  resistless  inrush  of  those  wild  tribes  who 
are  the  civilized  nations  of  to-day.  And 
who  shall  say  how  much  they  learnt  from 
Rome,  how  much  they  would  have  lost  had 
there  been  no  Rome,  had  their  inrush  been 
a  mere  migration  to  new  lands  instead  of 
the  conquest  of  the  world's  greatest  power? 

19 


Augustus 

When  we  think  of  what  Rome  was  and 
of  all  we  owe  to  her,  not  only  in  lessons  of 
civilization  but  in  lessons  of  empire,  we  must 
remember  that,  without  Augustus,  her  civil- 
ization would  have  been  lost  and  her  empire 
would  never  have  been. 


20 


CHAPTERI:  TheDevelopment 

of  the  Republic.  I.  Historical 

IF  we  would  understand  and  appreciate 
the  full  extent  and  true  meaning  of  the 
work  that  fell  to  Augustus's  lot,  and  that 
he  accomplished  so  thoroughly,  we  must,  of 
necessity,  know  something  of  the  times  and 
conditions  that  preceded  his  coming. 

We  must  glance  at  the  beginnings  of  Rome, 
at  her  development  into  a  pan-Italian  power, 
and  at  her  subsequent  development  into  a 
world-power. 

We  must  also  observe  her  internal  con- 
ditions, and  notice  how  the  Republic  came  to 
be,  and  what  it  became.  We  must  see  how 
Rome  grew  great  as  a  republic  and  as  the 
Mistress  of  Italy,  and  why  and  how  it  was 
that,  as  a  republic,  she  failed  when  she  had 
to  face  the  problem  of  being  the  Mistress  of 
the  World. 

We  must  discover  and  remark  upon  the 
causes  that  led  to  the  failure  of  her  re- 
publican constitution,  that  opened  the  door 
to  anarchy,  to  the  adventurers,  and,  finally, 
to  Csesar. 

21 


Augustus 

Lastly,  we  must  comprehend  what  it  was 
that  Caesar  accomplished,  and  why  it  was  that 
his  work  had  to  be  completed  by  Augustus, 
the  founder  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

The  exact  facts  of  the  beginning  of  Rome 
cannot  be  said  to  be  fully  known.  Whether 
the  Romans  came  from  over  the  seas,  as  their 
own  legend  has  it,  or  whether  they  descended 
from  the  North,  or  indeed  how  they  evolved, 
is  not  really  our  concern.  It  is  sufficient  for 
us  that  there  was  a  city,  said  to  have  been 
founded  in  753  B.C.,  that  this  city  was  at 
first  ruled  by  kings,  and  then  transformed 
(whether  by  a  sudden  revolution  or  by 
a  slow  process  of  modification  does  not 
matter)  into  a  republic  about  the  year 
509  B.C. 

It  is  probable  that  during  part  of  her  period 
of  kingship  she  was  under  Etruscan  rule; 
for  we  read  of  her  sudden,  and  otherwise 
inexplicable,  expansion,  and  her  equally 
sudden  relapse  to  her  former  narrow  extent 
— just  the  city  and  the  land  immediately 
surrounding  it. 

Her    real    history    commences    with    the 


22 


Development  of  the  Republic 

acknowledged  beginning  of  her  republic  at 
about  the  date  we  have  given. 

The  first  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  her 
existence  from  this  date  represent  her  attempts 
to  live  in  the  face  of  the  many  dangers  that 
beset  her  from  outside,  and  to  stem  and 
repel  the  tide  of  invasion. 

She  had  a  long  and  critical  struggle  with 
Veii  up  to  396  B.C.;  she  was  all  but  annihilated 
by  the  Gauls  under  Brennus  in  390  B.C.;  and 
only  fifty  years  later  she  ended  a  fierce  strife 
for  her  existence  with  the  Samnites.  These 
were  her  greatest  and  most  dangerous  foes. 
Once  she  had  survived  their  attacks  her 
progress  was  far  easier  and  swifter.  It  took 
her,  as  a  fact,  little  more  than  seventy  years 
to  become  the  Mistress  of  Italy. 

In  281  B.C.  she  had  to  meet  one  dangerous 
enemy,  Pyrrhus  of  Epirus,  who  had  formed 
the  dream  of  being  in  the  West  what  Alex- 
ander had  been  in  the  East,  the  pioneer  of  a 
vast  Greater  Grecian  Empire.  But  Pyrrhus 
was  checked  where  he  least  expected  it, 
and  his  power  and  his  hopes  melted  away 
before  the  stubborn  Republic  that  refused 

23 


Augustus 

to  treat  with  him  so  long  as  he  was  on 
Italian  soil. 

By  264  B.C.  Rome  had  conquered  the  whole 
of  the  Italian  peninsula,  and  her  northern 
frontier  against  Cisalpine  Gaul  was  the  line 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Arno  river  to  that 
of  the  Aesis. 

As  we  know,  she  had  yet  to  meet  Carthage, 
perhaps  her  most  formidable  enemy  and  rival. 
The  first  Carthaginian  war  centred  in  Sicily, 
and  it  was  the  occasion  of  Rome's  first  ap- 
pearance as  a  sea-power.  It  left  her  greater 
than  ever,  and  in  possession  of  her  first  prov- 
inces. It  was  in  227  B.C.  that  she  acquired 
Western  Sicily,  Sardinia,  and  Corsica;  and 
Eastern  Sicily  came  into  her  hands  twenty 
years  later. 

The  second  Carthaginian  war,  which  was 
a  determined  attempt  on  the  part  of  Hannibal 
to  establish  Carthage  instead  of  Rome  as 
the  future  power  of  the  West,  began  in  218 
B.C.,  and  ended  with  Hannibal's  defeat  at 
Zama  in  202  B.C. 

The   third   Carthagnian    war   was   not   a 

further  struggle  for  domination,  but  simply 

24 


Photo  Braun,  Clement  <&  Co. 

THE  SAVING  OP  TFIE  CAPITOL 

A   famiiim   incident   in   the  curli/   hixttiri/   of   Home:  the   cackling  of 
the  geese  gives  warning  of  the  approach  of  the  Gauls 
By  H.  P.  Motte 


Development  of  the  Republic 

a  campaign  resulting  in  the  final  destruction 
of  Carthage,  and  the  establishment — at  the 
fall  of  Carthage  in  146  B.C. — of  one  more 
province,  'Africa.' 

Rome  had  acquired  Spain  in  197  B.C.  She 
began  her  war  with — or,  rather,  her  'libera- 
tion' of — Greece  in  £00  B.C.  Macedonia 
became  yet  one  more  province  in  146  B.C. 

II.  Political 

We  must  now  examine,  as  briefly  as  may  be, 
the  constitution  of  Rome,  its  beginnings  and 
its  changes,  up  to  the  date  of  the  commence- 
ment of  its  failure. 

Tacitus  opens  his  Annals  with  the  crude 
hexameter,  Urbem  Romam  a  principio  reges 
habuere.1  As  we  have  indicated,  there  is  no 
need  to  go  beyond  this,  except  to  say  that 
these  kings  seem  to  have  been  the  absolute 
masters  of  Rome  in  every  respect. 

They  had  certainly  absolute  power,  so  far 
as  the  plebs,  or  lower  classes,  were  concerned, 
for  life  and  death,  and  it  was  in  the  first 
year  of  the  Republic  (so  we  are  told)  that  this 

1  'Kings  held  the  city  of  Rome  at  the  commencement.' 
25 


Augustus 

was  limited  by  the  Lex  Valeria  de  provocatione, 
which  enacted  that  no  free  Roman  might  be 
condemned  by  a  magistrate  until  the  sentence 
had  been  referred  to  the  Comitia  Centuriata 
(the  mass  assembly  of  the  people)  and  con- 
firmed by  them. 

It  is  true  that  this  only  applied  within  the 
city  limits;  the  consuls  had  power  of  life 
and  death  when  on  campaign,  and  of  course 
dictators  had  absolute  power  during  their 
term  of  office. 

The  successors  of  the  kings  were  the  consuls 
(or  prcetores  consules),  elected  annually  and 
by  the  people.  True,  the  patres  (and  at  first 
only  a  patrician  could  hold  any  office  in  the 
State)  could,  by  means  of  augurs,  pontiffs, 
and  so  forth,  impede  elections  to  a  very  large 
extent. 

The  first  really  important  step  in  the 
emancipation  of  the  plebs — even  more  im- 
portant in  the  later  history  of  Rome — was  the 
institution  of  the  Tribunate. 

The  tribunes  were  at  first  plebeians,  elected 
by  plebeians,  to  act  as  protectors  and  inter- 
cessors against  individual  acts  of  oppression 

26 


Development  of  the  Republic 

on  the  part  of  magistrates.  They  had  to 
carry  out  their  intercession  in  person,  and 
their  persons  were  therefore  declared  to  be 
inviolable. 

They  were  also  permitted,  by  the  Lex 
Publilia  in  471  B.C.,  to  discuss  and  propose, 
in  the  meetings  of  the  people,  measures 
desired  by  and  for  the  people;  these  were 
called  plebiscita. 

Though  the  Tribunate  was  a  recognized 
fact  in  471  B.C.,  it  was  not  until  449  B.C.  that 
it  became  a  real  power.  In  that  year  the 
number  of  tribunes  was  raised  to  ten,  and 
it  was  enacted  that  the  measures  they  pro- 
posed and  passed  through  the  council  of 
the  plebs  could  become  law  and  be  binding 
on  the  whole  people  if  approved  by  the 
council  of  the  patres. 

This  enactment  was  largely  due  to  the 
failure  of  the  Decemviri  (or  Commission  of 
Ten  for  the  reorganization  of  the  laws)  to 
effect  a  proper  harmony  between  the  plebs 
and  the  patres  by  instituting  a  code  of  laws 
which  should  bind  both  parties. 

Four  years  later  the  first  effort  was  made 

27 


Augustus 

to  open  the  magistracy  of  the  State  to  the 
plebs.  Tribunes  were  appointed  under  the 
title  of  'military  tribunes  with  consular 
power.' 

From  this  date  begins  the  genuine  're- 
publicanizing '  of  the  constitution,  step  by 
step.  First  one  office  and  then  another  was 
thrown  open  to  the  people — the  consulship 
in  366  B.C.,  the  dictatorship  in  356  B.C.,  the 
censorship  in  350  B.C.,  the  prsetorship  in 
337  B.C.;  and  in  300  B.C.  even  the  sacred 
College  of  Pontiffs  opened  its  doors  to  the 
lower  classes. 

By  the  year  287  B.C.  the  sovereignty  of 
the  people  was  an  accomplished  fact;  and 
from  that  date  the  original  sphere  or  work 
of  the  tribunes  no  longer  existed.  We  shall 
see  later  into  what  the  Tribunate  developed 
and  to  what  uses  it  was  put;  but,  roughly 
speaking,  for  the  next  hundred  and  fifty 
years  it  was  practically  in  abeyance. 

We  must  mention  yet  another  development 
in  the  magistracy  which  played  a  most 
vitally  important  part  in  later  days.  This 

was  the  proconsulate,  a  prorogation  of  the 

28 


Development  of  the  Republic 

consular  office.  It  was  first  put  into  practice 
in  327  B.C.,  and  its  object  was  'to  allow 
matters  to  be  carried  on  for  the  consul  until 
the  war  should  be  fought  out.'  The  primary 
reason  for  the  institution  of  this  prorogation 
was  the  inconvenience  of  calling  back  magis- 
trates from  an  unfinished  campaign. 

This  proconsular  power  in  after-years  proved 
to  be  the  destruction  of  the  Senate;  later 
still  it  became  one  of  the  greatest  and  most 
powerful  prerogatives  of  the  Emperor. 

We  must  touch  upon  one  or  two  more 
points  which  illustrate  the  working  of  the 
magistracy.  The  praetors  were  at  first  the 
administrators  of  the  law  in  Rome:  later 
on,  with  the  development  of  the  colonies 
throughout  Italy,  the  praetors  remained  at 
Rome  more  or  less,  but  sent  out  substitutes, 
named  'prefects'  (juris  dicendi  prcefecti)  to 
administer  justice  throughout  Italy. 

When  the  first  provinces  were  instituted 
and  it  was  seen  that  resident  magistrates 
were  required,  praetors  were  sent  out,  as  were 
consuls  later  on,  to  fill  these  posts.  The 

theory  was  that  at  the  end  of  his  year  of 

29 


Augustus 

office  in  Rome  the  consul  or  praetor  should  be 
appointed  to  his  province  or  foreign  command, 
which  he  had  to  resign  or  lay  down  before 
his  re-entry  into  Rome. 


CHAPTER  II:  The  Commence- 
ment of  Individualism 

THE  year  134  B.C.  may  be  said  to 
mark  the  line  of  transition  for  Rome. 
Hitherto  she  had  been  a  republic, 
in  fact  as  well  as  in  name.  Henceforward 
her  republican  constitution  was  to  suffer  the 
various  attacks  that  eventually  destroyed  it 
and  paved  the  way  for  the  inevitable  result — 
Empire. 

Italy  was  now  a  species  of  confederation 
under  the  rule  of  Rome — a  series  of  states 
allied  to  Rome  very  closely,  some  more 
favoured  than  others,  but  one  and  all  united 
under  Rome  against  the  outer  world. 

They  were  not  as  yet  Roman;  they  had 
not  the  Roman  franchise  which  was  to  weld 
them,  with  Rome,  into  one  solid  whole. 
That  was  to  come  half  a  century  later. 

Politically  speaking,  Rome  had  still  the 
appearance  of  unity  in  her  constitution;  but 
the  elements  of  disunion  had  already  made 
themselves  felt. 

Provincial  government,  as  it  grew  in  im- 
portance, and  in  separation  from  the  central 

31 


Augustus 

government,  tended  to  grow  more  and  more 
independent.  The  Senate  had  no  longer  a 
complete  control  over  the  proconsulate,  and 
the  resident  magistrates  in  the  various  prov- 
inces were  developing,  without  check  or 
hindrance,  that  capacity  for  avarice  and 
general  maladministration  which  was  to  make 
senatorial  provincial  government  a  byword 
and  a  reproach. 

Internally  also  the  disunion  was  ready  to 
appear.  The  Senate  and  the  assembly  of 
the  plebs  were  no  longer  in  harmony,  but 
were  ready  to  break  out  into  criticism  and 
opposition,  the  one  or  the  other.  The  first 
open  attack  was  that  of  the  Gracchi,  133- 
123  B.C. 

Tiberius  Gracchus;  raised  the  question  of 
the  allotment  of  the  'public  lands'  (won  in 
conquest)  among  the  poorer  citizens.  This 
(and,  indeed,  almost  all  the  land  of  the 
Republic)  had  fallen  under  the  control  of 
wealthy  men,  who  even  used  it  for  their 
pleasure-domains,  or  wealthy  companies,  who 
made  vast  grazing  tracts  of  it. 

Allotment  meant  definite  ownership;  but 
32 


Commencement  of  Individualism 

so  far  only  'occupation'  was  allowed.  Even 
that  was  on  an  exaggerated  scale;  a  few 
individuals  *  occupied'  many  thousands  of 
acres. 

Tiberius  Gracchus  also  revived  the  old 
intercessio  of  the  Tribunate. 

Gaius,  his  brother,  went  farther.  He 
strove  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the  Latins 
and  the  Italians,  and  for  a  share  in  the 
allotment  benefits  for  them.  He  instituted 
monthly  corn  doles  for  the  benefit  of  the 
people.  These  doles  became  a  regular  feature 
of  the  Empire.  He  proposed  the  restriction 
of  the  Senate  in  the  matter  of  the  assignment 
of  provinces;  he  brought  forward  measures 
for  regulating  the  taxation  of  Asia;  and  he 
made  certain  alterations  in  the  conditions  of 
military  service. 

As  far  as  the  land  question  was  concerned, 
the  attack  had  no  permanent  effect.  In 
118  B.C.  the  allotment  of  lands  already 
occupied  was  stopped.  In  111  B.C.  all  land 
occupied  was  declared  by  law  to  be  private 
property.  For  the  future,  whenever  the 
question  of  allotment  arose,  the  land  required 

33 


Augustus 

for  such  allotment  had  to  be  purchased  by 
the  State. 

One  most  effective  step  taken  by  the 
Gracchi — a  step  which  had  far-reaching  con- 
sequences— was  concerned  with  the  Eques- 
trian Order. 

The  Equestrian  Order  was  originally  little 
more  than  a  name.  It  may  have  arisen  from 
the  three  semi-legendary  tribes — the  Ramnes, 
Tities,  and  Luceres.  It  had  some  place  in 
processions  on  feast  days,  triumphs,  and  so 
forth,  and  some  sort  of  association  with  an 
idea  of  a  citizen  cavalry.  But  as  yet  the 
Equestrian  Order  had  not  figured  as  a  feature 
of  the  State. 

Nevertheless  it  represented  a  very  im- 
portant element  in  Rome,  namely,  the  middle 
class.  And  for  this  reason  we  cannot  pass 
over  its  first  'official*  appearance  without 
some  comment  as  to  what  it  was  and  what  it 
represented. 

The  middle  class  in  any  State  is  always 
the  last  to  make  its  appearance.  But  when 
it  does  appear  it  may  grow  to  be  the  most 
important  class  in  the  community. 

34 


Commencement  of  Individualism 

A  State  at  its  inception  is  automatically 
divided  into  two  parts — the  rulers  and  the 
ruled,  the  men  who  work  and  the  men 
who  exact  and  direct  the  work. 

The  rulers  direct  the  history  of  the  State, 
and  the  ruled  make  the  history.  The  rulers 
make  the  law  and  the  ruled  obey  it. 

As  the  life  of  the  State  grows  in  com- 
plexity another  class  arises,  between  these 
two  classes,  allied  to  each  class  in  a  sense, 
yet  independent  of  either. 

The  increasing  necessities  of  daily  life  call 
for  an  intermediary  who  is  prepared  to  deal 
with  them.  Thus  the  trader,  the  manu- 
facturer, the  agent,  appear. 

So  long  as  the  middle  class  has  its  own 
clearly  defined  occupations,  so  long  as  the 
frontiers  between  nobility,  middle  class, 
and  lowest  class  are  clearly  marked,  there 
is  no  particular  danger  of  discontent. 
But  when  the  line  of  delimitation  be- 
comes less  clear,  when  the  spheres  of  the 
different  classes  become  gradually  involved 
the  one  with  the  other,  then  readjust- 
ment and  compromise  become  necessary, 


Augustus 

and  jealousy  and  ambition  make  themselves 
felt. 

The  middle  class,  at  the  time  when  the 
Gracchi  appeared,  were  an  appreciable  factor 
in  the  Roman  State.  But  probably  they 
themselves  hardly  understood  their  own 
ambitions  or  the  possibilities  of  the  power 
they  might  exercise.  The  Gracchi  were  the 
first  to  teach  them. 

The  taxation  of  the  provinces  had  hitherto 
been  entirely  under  the  control  of  the  Senate 
and  the  senatorial  magistrates.  The  Gracchi 
handed  the  taxation  of  the  new  province  of 
Asia  over  to  the  middle  class — the  money- 
lenders and  merchants.  They  also  carried  a 
measure  by  which  the  judges  of  the  newly 
instituted  courts  for  cases  of  bribery,  extortion, 
and  general  provincial  misgovernment  were 
chosen  from  the  middle  class,  or  Equestrian 
Order. 

This  was  the  foundation  of  the  hostility 
between  this  class  and  the  senatorial  class — 
a  hostility  that  lasted  until  the  time  of 
Augustus,  who  found  a  new  and  a  better 
means  of  utilizing  the  Equestrian  Order  and 

36 


Commencement  of  Individualism 

prepared  it  for  the  great  part  it  was  to  play 
in  the  Empire  under  his  successors. 

The  Gracchi  were  thus  the  authors  of  the 
first  great  organized  attack  upon  the  Senate. 
The  second  attack  began,  curiously  enough, 
in  the  very  year  (118  B.C.)  which  had  witnessed 
the  breakdown  of  the  Gracchan  land  schemes. 

Jugurtha,  an  African  prince,  by  means  of 
bribes  and  treachery  and  murder  had  suc- 
ceeded in  making  himself  master  of  Numidia 
and  throwing  off  allegiance  to  Rome. 

The  war  against  him  was  so  scandalously 
mismanaged  that  the  tribunes  succeeded  in 
getting  a  commission  of  inquiry  appointed. 
They  followed  this  by  nominating — in  the 
teeth  of  the  Senate — Marius,  a  man  of  quite 
humble  origin,  as  consul,  and  in  giving  him 
the  sole  command  in  Numidia. 

Marius,  who  was  an  admirable  general  and 
soldier,  brought  the  war  to  a  successful  finish 
and  led  Jugurtha  to  Rome  in  chains  in 
104  B.C. 

He  was  almost  at  once  confronted  with  a 
new  crisis,  the  invasion  of  the  Teutones  and 
Cimbri.  With  this  also  he  dealt  successfully, 

37 


Augustus 

finally  defeating  these  savage  northerners  in 
101  B.C. 

The  rise  of  Marius  marks  the  beginning 
of  the  stage  of  individualism  in  Roman 
history. 

Six  times  consul,  and  the  head  of  an  army 
which  he  had  made,  he  practically  ruled 
Rome  for  the  time  being.  His  veterans 
helped  to  pass  every  measure  that  he  and  his 
associates,  Saturninus  and  Glaucia,  proposed, 
and  the  Senate  was  powerless  against  him. 
His  successive  elections  were  a  sign  that  the 
people  were  tired  of  frequently  changing 
commands,  and  felt  the  need  of  more  per- 
manent leadership. 

The  army  of  Marius  marks  the  beginning 
of  professional  soldiering  in  Roman  history. 

True,  the  army  had  long  ceased  to  be  a 
mere  citizen  force  raised  for  emergency.  It 
had  its  regular  training,  and  its  pay  while  on 
service:  that  had  been  instituted  as  long  ago 
as  396  B.C.,  during  the  lengthy  siege  of  Veii. 
But  Marius  was  the  first  to  make  the  army 
a  separate  entity  in  the  State  and  to  sever 
it  entirely  from  the  civil  element.  He 

38 


Commencement  of  Individualism 

abolished  the  old  compulsory  levy,  and  in- 
stituted voluntary  enlistment  and  admission 
of  all  classes  in  the  State. 

We  need  not  dwell  on  Marius's  statesman- 
ship: it  was  not  his  strong  point.  He  only 
succeeded  in  passing  various  measures  purely 
hostile  to  the  Senate  and  more  or  less  favour- 
able to  the  other  classes  of  the  State.  His 
associates,  Glaucia  and  Saturninus,  alienated 
all  classes  by  their  violence  and  recklessness, 
and  he  was  actually  called  upon  by  the  Senate 
to  protect  Rome  against  them.  While  on 
their  trial  the  two  were  murdered  by  the 
populace.  Their  death  ensured  an  interval 
of  quiet  for  the  State. 

But  a  new  and  formidable  crisis  supervened. 
The  Italian  states  had  persistently  been  ask- 
ing for  the  franchise,  which  should  have 
been  granted  to  them  years  earlier.  Again 
and  again  disappointed  at  the  scornful  atti- 
tude of  Rome,  they  at  last  matured  a  plan 
of  independence.  A  vast  confederation  was 
to  be  formed,  with  a  new  constitution  of  its 
own  (faithfully  modelled  on  the  hated  consti- 
tution of  Rome,  with  a  Senate  and  everything 

39 


Augustus 

else  that  was  Roman!),  and  a  new  capital, 
Corfinium,  now  to  be  called  'Italica.' 

Rome  at  once  took  action,  and  the  'Social 
War/  as  it  was  called,  commenced  (90  B.C.). 
Marius  acted  therein  as  one  of  the  legates  of 
the  consuls,  and  with  him  Sulla,  destined  to  be 
his  successor  in  the  absolute  control  of  Rome. 

The  war  ended  in  88  B.C.,  thanks  to  the 
granting  of  the  franchise.  The  only  state 
that  held  out  was  Samnium,  the  ancient 
enemy  of  Rome;  but  the  Samnites  were  sub- 
dued by  Sulla,  who  distinguished  himself 
greatly  in  the  campaign. 

We  should  mention  here  one  man,  Marcus 
Livius  Drusus,  who  attempted  the  work  of 
general  reconciliation.  His  ideal  was  the 
cessation  of  hostility  between  the  Equestrians 
— they  were  now  definitely  known  under  this 
name — and  the  Senate;  and  he  strove  for 
the  extension  of  the  franchise  to  Italy.  But 
he  failed,  as  did  Cicero  after  him.  The  hatred 
between  the  two  classes  in  Rome  was  too 
great.  The  Equestrians,  indeed,  had  proved 
to  be  quite  as  bad  as  the  senatorial  class; 

they  were  extortionate  in  their  taxation,  and 

40 


Commencement  of  Individualism 

the  courts  which  they  controlled  were  nothing 
less  than  hotbeds  of  blackmail:  not  a  single 
magistrate  could  hope  to  escape  prosecution 
and  condemnation  unless  he  was  prepared  to 
pay  his  accusers  all  they  demanded. 

Drusus  only  succeeded  in  rousing  the 
enmity  of  both  classes  against  him;  and  his 
efforts  in  regard  to  the  franchise  were  con- 
strued into  support  of  the  Italian  allies 
against  Rome.  Murdered  in  91  B.C.,  he  fell  a 
victim  to  his  zeal  for  reform. 

As  soon  as  the  Social  War  was  ended 
the  rivalry  between  Marius  and  Sulla  came 
to  a  head.  War  had  broken  out  against 
Mithradates,  king  of  Pontus,  in  Asia  Minor, 
and  the  command  would  obviously  go  either 
to  Sulla  or  to  Marius. 

A  tribune,  Publius  Sulpicius  Rufus,  pro- 
posed Marius;  he  also  brought  forward 
various  measures  hostile  to  the  Senate.  Sulla 
at  once  marched  from  Campania  on  Rome. 
Marius  fled  to  Carthage,  and  Sulla  entered 
the  city  at  the  head  of  his  legions — the  first 
armed  entry  in  Roman  history  of  a  Roman 
into  Rome. 

41 


Augustus 

Sulla  at  once  imposed  his  conditions, 
elected  the  consuls,  and  left  for  Asia  in 
87  B.C. 

As  soon  as  he  was  safely  out  of  Italy 
Marius  returned  to  Rome,  and  with  him 
Cinna.  The  proposals  of  Sulpicius  Rufus 
were  promptly  revived.  Octavius,  the  consul 
chosen  by  Sulla,  drove  Cinna  out  of  Rome, 
but  Cinna  and  Marius  gathered  together  an 
army  and  once  more  were  masters  of  the 
situation.  Marius  became  consul  for  the 
seventh  time,  and  carried  out  a  fearful  mas- 
sacre of  all  his  opponents.  But  he  died  shortly 
after  his  return  to  power,  in  86  B.C.,  and  Cinna 
was  all-powerful  for  the  next  three  years. 

Sulla  meanwhile  had  finished  his  task  and 
brought  the  war  in  Asia  to  an  end  in  85  B.C. 
He  re-entered  Italy  two  years  later  and  again 
marched  on  Rome,  defeated  the  'Marians' 
(now  joined  by  the  Samnites),  and  gathered 
the  whole  power  of  Rome  into  his  hands. 

By  81  B.C.  the  Civil  War  was  at  an  end. 

Sulla  pointed  out  to  the  Senate  that  only 
by  his  appointment  as  dictator  could  order 

and  law  be  restored,  and  the  Senate,  perforce, 

42 


Commencement  of  Individualism 

gave  him  his  will.  He  had  the  legions! 
They  could  hardly  do  otherwise. 

He  might  have  now  reorganized  and  re- 
stored the  constitution  of  Rome  once  and  for 
all.  He  did  pass  measures  for  the  restoration 
of  senatorial  power  and  the  restriction  of  the 
tribunes.  But  his  laws  died  with  him. 

For  one  thing,  Sulla  could  not  forego 
revenge.  His  rule  was  a  reign  of  terror,  of 
proscriptions  and  confiscations. 

Further,  the  time  for  reaction  was  past. 
The  Gracchi  had  broken  down  the  old  tradi- 
tions of  obedience  to  the  Senate. 

Lastly,  Sulla  himself  had  shown  how  there 
was  no  longer  any  possible  safeguard  in 
any  laws.  He  himself,  as  proconsul,  had 
defied  the  Senate:  it  had  never  authorized  or 
recognized  the  peace  he  made  with  Mithra- 
dates.  The  very  laws  he  had  passed  owed 
their  validity  to  the  fact  that  he  was  the 
master  of  the  army. 

Any  one  who  could  get  proconsular  com- 
mand and  control  of  the  legions  could  do  just 
what  Sulla  had  done,  and  could  alter  the 
constitution  of  Rome  to  his  will. 

43 


Augustus 

All  that  Rome  remembered  of  Sulla  after 
his  death  was  his  reign  of  terror.  He  and 
Marius  were  the  first  of  the  *  Adventurers,' 
the  pioneers  of  individualism,  in  Rome.  We 
now  come  to  the  last  of  the  'Adventurers.' 

Gneius  Pompeius  was  given  a  proconsular 
command  against  Sertorius,  a  *  Marian'  who 
had  practically  ruled  Spain  since  82  B.C. 
Pompeius  was  under  thirty  years  of  age  and 
had  not  yet  held  even  the  office  of  quaestor. 
He  defeated  Sertorius  and  returned  to  Rome 
in  71  B.C. 

Marcus  Crassus  (prominent  for  his  wealth 
rather  than  any  other  quality)  was  given 
command  against  Spartacus  in  73  B.C. 
Spartacus  was  a  runaway  gladiator  from 
Capua;  he  had  organized  an  army  of  seventy 
thousand — brigands,  outlaws,  slaves,  ruined 
peasants — and  was  master  of  Southern  Italy. 
Crassus  crushed  him  in  71  B.C. 

Pompeius  and  Crassus — thanks  to  the 
presence  of  their  troops  just  outside  the  gates 
of  Rome — were  made  consuls  for  70  B.C. 
They  promptly  restored  the  power  of  the 
tribunes,  and  elected  censors  (for  the  first 

44 


Commencement  of  Individualism 

time  since  86  B.C.)  to  purge  the  Senate  of  the 
evil  characters  surviving  from  the  reign  of 
Sulla. 

They  also  restored  to  the  Equestrians  the 
courts  which  Sulla  had  handed  over  to  the 
Senate.  They  then  devoted  their  attention 
to  the  chances  of  big  foreign  commands. 

The  old  order  was  ended;  no  one  of  ambi- 
tion or  ability  thought  any  longer  of  the 
old-fashioned  magistrate's  career.  Foreign 
commands,  power  over  the  legions,  and  the 
reversal  of  one  or  the  other  party  of  the 
State — these  were  now  the  mode. 

Pompeius  was  the  first  to  find  what  he 
wanted,  in  the  shape  of  a  three  years'  com- 
mand against  the  Cilician  pirates,  who  were 
ravaging  the  Mediterranean.  He  started  his 
campaign,  with  fifteen  legates,  two  hundred 
ships,  and  unlimited  troops,  under  his  sole 
command,  in  67  B.C. 

The  next  year  brought  him  a  further  com- 
mand against  Mithradates.  So  far  the  war 
had  been  conducted,  successfully  enough,  by 
Lucullus,  an  able  general  and  a  man  of  far 
higher  character  than  was  common  in  his 

45 


Augustus 

time.  But  Lucullus,  though  successful  in 
active  campaign,  was  unable  to  retain  his  hold 
over  his  legions:  he  would  not  bribe  them  by 
plunder,  and  he  could  not  gain  their  affection 
as,  for  example,  did  Caesar.  He  returned  to 
Rome  in  66  B.C.,  and  his  laurels  devolved 
upon  Pompeius,  who  retained  them  until  his 
return  to  Rome  in  62  B.C.  And  now  appears 
the  third  figure  of  the  so-called  First  Trium- 
virate, the  man  who  was  to  lay  the  foundations 
upon  which  Rome,  under  the  auspices  of 
Augustus,  was  to  build  her  Empire — Gaius 
Julius  Caesar. 

Caesar  had  come  to  the  front  in  70  B.C.  A 
nephew  of  Marius  and  the  son-in-law  of 
Cinna,  he  was  marked  out  to  be  the  leader  of 
the  popular  party,  and  he  naturally  devoted 
himself  to  the  work  of  compensating — so  far 
as  that  was  possible — for  the  reign  of  terror 
instituted  by  Sulla:  he  strove  to  gain  the 
sympathy  and  the  help  of  Rome  for  the 
children  of  the  proscribed. 

He  also  worked  for  another  cause,  the 
extension  of  the  franchise  to  the  peoples 

beyond  the  Po. 

46 


Commencement  of  Individualism 

He  worked  for  the  populace.  As  curule 
sedile  in  65  B.C.,  he  instituted  splendid  games 
for  the  pleasure  of  the  mob;  and  he  spent 
vast  sums  of  money  on  the  Appian  Way, 
Rome's  great  southern  thoroughfare. 

He  associated  himself  with  Crassus,  whose 
wealth  constituted  his  real  value  for  the 
object  Caesar  had  in  view — no  less  than  a 
Western  command  equivalent  to  that  of 
Pompeius  in  the  East. 

Here  we  must  return  to  the  subject  of 
the  Tribunate.  We  have  shown  what  was 
the  value  of  this  office  in  early  days,  and 
how  it  practically  lapsed  when  the  plebs  rose 
to  their  rightful  position  in  the  State.  We 
have  seen  how  the  Gracchi  used  it  as  a 
weapon  against  the  Senate;  and  Drusus 
sought  its  influence  in  the  cause  of  recon- 
ciliation and  order. 

Now  we  see  it  in  a  different  light.  The 
tribunes  are  no  longer  the  'protectors  of  the 
plebs9:  they  become  the  jackals  for  foreign 
commands. 

Sulpicius  Rufus  acted  for  Marius.  Simi- 
larly Clodius,  Gabinius,  Manilius,  Vatinius, 

47 


Augustus 

appear  as  agents  for  Pompeius  and  Caesar. 
They  gain  the  power  for  their  chiefs,  and  at 
the  same  time  ensure  to  them  popularity 
with  the  mob.  We  shall  see  how,  later  on, 
the  chiefs  dispensed  with  their  jackals,  and 
themselves  annexing  the  tribunician  power, 
posed  as  the  direct  protectors  of  the  popu- 
lace. 

Caesar  suffered  a  set-back  by  the  revolt  of 
Catiline  in  Southern  Italy  in  64  B.C.  Catiline 
was  one  of  the  lesser  adventurers  whose  only 
hopes  lay  in  violence;  he  had  collected  round 
him  a  band  of  outlaws,  brigands,  and  broken 
men.  Caesar,  who  had  supported  him  for  the 
consulate  in  64  B.C.,  now  fell  under  suspicion 
of  having  favoured  this  rising.  Catiline  lost 
the  consulship,  and  Cicero — the  supporter  of 
law  and  order  and  the  ancient  Republican 
regime — enjoyed  a  moment  of  favour  and 
power,  thanks  to  the  vigour  with  which  he 
suppressed  the  Catilinian  revolt,  and  to  the 
distrust  of  Caesar  prevalent  in  the  middle 
class. 

Caesar  went  to  Spain  as  propraetor,  returned 
in  60  B.C.,  and  gained  the  consulate  for  59  B.C. 

48 


Commencement  of  Individualism 

He  lost  no  time  in  cultivating  the  different 
factors  in  the  State.  He  ratified  Pompeius's 
Eastern  policy  and  achievements;  he  gave 
to  the  Equestrian  Order  the  relief  which  the 
Senate  had  denied  them:  the  two  orders  had 
quarrelled  over  the  price  to  be  paid  for  the 
right  of  collecting  the  taxes  in  Asia.  He 
carried  an  agrarian  law  providing  for  pur- 
chase by  the  State  of  land  for  allotment 
among  the  poor,  and  also  for  distribution 
of  the  rich  Ager  Campanus — a  coveted  and 
fertile  tract. 

Then  at  last  he  secured  his  long-desired 
command.  He  was  appointed  for  five  years 
to  do  as  he  wished  with  Illyricum,  Cisalpine 
and  then  Transalpine  Gaul — thanks  to  an 
obedient  tribune,  Vatinius. 

We  come  now  to  the  final  stage.  Pompeius 
returns.  The  Triumvirate  meets  again  at 
Luca  in  56  B.C.  Caesar  is  given  five  years' 
further  power;  Pompeius  has  Spain  and 
Africa;  Crassus  has  Syria.  The  last  act 
begins. 

In  53  B.C.  Crassus  fell  a  victim  to  the 
Parthians.  At  the  same  time,  owing  to  the 

49 


Augustus 

disturbed  condition  of  Rome,  Pompeius  was 
recalled  and  entrusted  with  the  'protection 
of  the  State* — even  made  sole  consul  in 
52  B.C.  Caesar  had  still  nearly  four  years' 
command  to  run,  but  he  wished  to  have  the 
consulship  for  49  B.C.  and  yet  not  to  give  up 
his  command.  The  law  of  the  constitution 
demanded  that  a  proconsul  should  resign  his 
command  before  re-entering  Rome.  The  aim 
of  Caesar's  opponents  was  that  he  should  not 
stand  for  the  consulship,  or,  failing  this,  that 
he  should  give  up  his  command.  Caesar 
parleyed  in  vain  with  the  Senate,  who,  secure 
of  the  support  of  Pompeius  (once  their  master, 
but  now  their  hope),  commanded  him  to  dis- 
band his  troops. 

In  49  B.C.  Caesar  crossed  the  Rubicon,  and 
Pompeius  fled  to  Greece. 

We  know  the  ending — how  the  two  met  at 
Pharsalus;  how  Pompeius,  defeated,  met  his 
death  on  the  very  shore  of  Egypt,  whose  king 
had  promised  him  his  friendship;  how  Caesar, 
now  alone  in  the  field,  crushed  Pharnaces 
(a  successor  to  Mithradates)  in  47  B.C.,  ended 
one  rising  at  Thapsus  in  Africa  in  46  B.C., 

5° 


Commencement  of  Individualism 

leaving  only  suicide  for  Cato,  the  last  of 
the  true  Republicans,  and  another  at  Munda 
in  Spain  in  45  B.C.,  and  returned  at  last  to 
Rome — only  to  fall,  one  short  year  later,  to 
the  daggers  of  his  assassins. 


CHAPTER  III:    The  Master 
of  Rome 

WE  have  no  real  reason  to  suppose 
that  Csesar  foresaw  what  was  to 
be  the  extent  of  his  power. 

At  first  his  sole  aim  had  been  a  great  com- 
mand, as  the  fashion  was  at  the  time.  Then 
circumstances  had,  step  by  step,  forced  him 
to  fight  against  his  rivals,  until  eventually  he 
found  himself  in  sole  control. 

He  had,  so  to  speak,  worked  imperially 
throughout.  That  was  in  his  nature.  He 
could  not  conquer  Gaul  without  organizing 
it,  nor  could  he  look  on — as  did  Pompeius 
— at  the  general  disorder  in  Rome  without 
attempting  to  organize  that.  Though  it  was 
only  in  47  B.C.  that  he  was  entirely  alone 
in  his  power,  he  had  been — perhaps  uncon- 
sciously— building  up  the  structure  of  that 
power  for  the  last  five  years  or  so. 

It  remained  afterward  for  Augustus  to 
systematize  all  that  Csesar  had  done. 

Caesar's  first  task  was  to  convince  Rome 
that  he  had  no  intention  of  being  a  second 
Sulla.  He  was  exceptionally  lenient,  and 

52 


The  Master  of  Rome 

had  no  thought  of  proscription.  In  his  allot- 
ment of  lands  to  his  veterans  he  took  especial 
care  not  to  evict  or  in  any  way  persecute 
existing  landholders. 

He  had  formerly  seemed  to  be  lavish  in 
the  extreme  toward  the  mob.  He  now  estab- 
lished a  proper  control  over  the  doles  of  corn, 
and  all  else  that  concerned  the  populace. 

He,  with  his  fellow-potentates,  had  re- 
stored their  power  to  the  Equestrians.  He 
now  instituted  a  species  of  censorship  of  that 
order,  and  purged  it  of  evil  and  over-rapacious 
and  unjust  judges. 

He  worked  hard  to  repopulate  the  wasted 
lands  of  Italy.  He  put  forward  a  scheme  for 
the  draining  of  the  Pomptine  Marshes  and 
the  Fucine  Lake,  and  projects  for  changing 
the  course  of  the  Tiber  and  the  creation  of  a 
great  Apennine  road. 

The  provinces  were  not  regarded  by  Caesar 
in  the  light  of  fields  for  exploitation.  He 
began  on  them  the  work  which  Augustus 
completed.  He  had  his  plans  for  the  fron- 
tiers— eastward,  from  Gaul,  to  the  Rhine  and 
to  the  Elbe,  northward,  from  Italy  to  the 

53 


Augustus 

Danube.  He  had  his  notes  for  the  possible 
reconquest  of  Parthia.  He  had  already  allied 
all  Gaul  to  Rome. 

As  to  his  own  position,  he  saw  nothing  for 
that  save  absolute  control — not  merely  be- 
cause he  possessed  the  legions,  but  because 
he  perceived  that  unless  everything  were  in 
his  own  hands  no  efficient  result  could  be 
attained. 

He  solved  the  difficulty  by  naming  himself 
perpetual  Imperator  and  Dictator.  The  dic- 
tatorship was  after  all  the  only  office  that 
could  fall  in  with  the  old  Republican  tradi- 
tions and  at  the  same  time  ensure  the  proper 
control  and  ordering  of  the  State. 

Csesar  had  everything  in  his  hands.  He 
appointed  his  own  legates,  wherever  a  sub- 
ordinate appointment  was  necessary;  they 
were  responsible  to  him  and  to  him  alone.  He 
held  the  entire  control  of  all  the  revenue.  He 
allowed  no  other  authority  of  any  sort  save 
his  own  to  exist  in  the  State.  And,  in  sign 
of  this,  he  wore  the  laurel  wreath  of  the 
Imperator  and  held  the  sceptre  of  the  im- 
perium,  or  supreme  command. 

54 


The  Master  of  Rome 

Naturally  enough,  he  concentrated  in  his 
person  the  proconsular  authority,  which  meant 
the  complete  control  of  Senate  and  magis- 
tracy. He  also  held  the  tribunician  power, 
thus  having,  besides  their  goodwill  toward 
him  as  their  protector,  the  command  of  the 
plebs. 

It  is  difficult — even  impossible — to  imagine 
how  else  Caesar  could  have  regularized  the 
situation.  What  he  might  have  done  had 
he  lived  is  mere  conjecture.  The  work 
of  setting  Rome  and  Italy — not  to  mention 
the  provinces — in  order  was  more  than 
enough  to  occupy  all  his  energy  and  faculties. 
And  the  factors  of  the  constitution  hardly 
seemed  to  be  worth  consideration.  Senate, 
Equestrians,  tribunes,  populace,  all  alike 
were  corrupt  and  useless:  at  least  they  did 
not  dispute  anything  that  Caesar  chose  to  do. 
He  was  far  too  great;  and,  besides,  he  was 
working  purely  in  their  interests,  never  self- 
ishly for  his  own! 

Who,  then,  were  his  opponents?  Cicero, 
to  a  certain  degree.  Cicero  had  been  the 
champion  of  the  middle  order,  the  *  New  Men ' ; 

55 


Augustus 

but,  far  more  than  this,  he  worked  for  the 
restoration  of  the  old  order,  the  ideal  re- 
public whose  traditions  he  loved.  He  was  a 
speaker,  a  writer,  a  poet,  and  a  student — a 
*  moderate'  man,  never  an  adventurer.  He 
had — in  his  own  estimation — once  before 
restored  the  Republic,  in  the  days  of  Catiline; 
he  had  then  been  expelled  and  outlawed  by 
Clodius,  and  had  again  returned,  to  be  again 
welcomed  by  the  Republic;  and  he  still 
hoped  to  see  it  established  yet  a  third  time. 
He  never  would  wholly  accept  Csesar,  even 
though  he,  with  all  his  ideals,  could  see  that 
Csesar  alone  was  capable  of  ensuring  and  pre- 
serving order  in  the  State. 

The  worth  of  the  other  'Republicans'  is 
hard  to  estimate.  No  single  one  of  them,  with 
the  exception  of  Decimus  Brutus,  seems  to 
have  any  striking  abilities,  or  even  strength 
of  character;  nor  do  they  appear,  either 
before  or  after  their  deed,  to  have  more  than 
a  very  misty  and  half-hearted  idea  of  the 
kind  of  regime  they  wished  to  institute. 
They  had  not  even  the  vigour  and  initia- 
tive of  their  philosophical  leader  Cicero; 

56 


The  Master  of  Rome 

and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  what  they 
would  have  made  of  the  State  even  with  his 
help. 

They  really  had  reason  to  be  grateful  to 
Csesar  and  to  value  his  life  and  his  favour, 
inasmuch  as,  in  spite  of  all  their  professions 
of  republicanism,  they  were  all  more  or  less 
nominees  of  his  and  owed  to  him  such  posts 
as  they  occupied  in  the  State.  The  very 
provinces  which  they  allotted  to  themselves 
after  his  death  had  been  assigned  to  them 
directly  by  him. 

But  they  were  jealous  of  him,  and  they 
disliked  the  sight  of  his  perpetual  power. 
So  they  furbished  up  their  academic 
ideas  of  the  Republican  constitution,  and 
pleaded  hard  with  themselves  that  this 
endless  dictatorship  was  unconstitutional. 
At  last  they  persuaded  themselves  that  it 
was  a  tryanny  in  the  ancient  Greek  sense  of 
the  word,  and  that  it  must  be  ended:  they 
would  be  noble  in  the  sight  of  Rome  if  they 
succeeded  in  ending  it.  The  old  Republic 
would,  somehow  or  other,  come  to  life  again, 
thanks  to  them. 

57 


The  Master  of  Rome 

They  must  have  noticed,  moreover,  that 
that  ending  would  not  really  be  difficult — 
though  we  must  hope  that  they  kept  their 
higher  motives  more  in  prominence  before 
their  eyes. 

Caesar,  confident  in  his  own  strength  and 
popularity,  never  troubled  about  escorts  or 
guards  or  any  other  precautions.  He  would 
have  been  the  first  to  disdain  them;  rather 
he  would  have  said  that  if  he  could  not  walk 
about  Rome  unarmed  it  was  high  time  for 
him  to  go!  A  writer,  the  late  George 
Warrington  Steevens,  from  whom  we  quote 
later  on,  puts  these  very  words  into  his 
mouth  in  an  imaginative  but  deeply  sug- 
gestive sketch. 

And  so  the  'Liberatores,'  the  would-be 
champions  of  the  ancient  traditions  of  Rome, 
plucked  up  their  courage  and  gathered  their 
numbers  together  and  surrounded  Caesar  in 
the  Senate  House.  We  know  the  rest — 
dramatic,  highly  philosophical  according  to 
those  fine  ideals,  and  possibly  excusable 
had  Caesar  been  anything  but  what  he  was! 
On  the  Ides  of  March  Caesar  fell:  and 

58 


<  >t 


The  Master  of  Rome 

with  him  fell   the  Republic  also,  once  and 
for  all. 

And  yet  perhaps  he  was  'happy  in  the 
hour  of  his  death.'  Old  age  might  have  made 
him  into  a  real  tyrant,  or  it  might  have  un- 
nerved him  until  the  sceptre  slipped  from  his 
grasp.  As  it  was,  he  died  at  the  very  moment 
when  all  Rome  could  not  but  lament  him, 
and  condemn,  or  at  least  deplore,  his  slayers. 


59 


CHAPTER  IV:  Extinction  of 
the  Republic 

AS  we  have  said,  the  'Liberatores'  had 
some  sort  of  idea  that  as   soon   as 
they  had  killed  Caesar  the  Republic 
would  somehow  or  other  come  to  life  again; 
in  it  they  would  appear  as  the  central  figures, 
noble    deliverers — and    doubtless    worthy    of 
posts  of  high  honour  and  glory.     If  Caesar 
had    given    them    high    honours,    could    the 
Republic,  saved  by  them,  do  less? 

After  all  they  had  this  much  excuse  for 
their  idea,  that — so  far  as  could  be  seen — 
there  was  no  one  save  themselves  (and  of 
course  Cicero,  their  philosopher-in-chief)  who 
could  take  up  the  power  Caesar  had  left. 

Caesar  had  made  no  preparations  for  the 
future — that  is  to  say,  the  future  without  and 
apart  from  himself.  He  had  not  had  the  time 
to  do  so!  His  notes  (for  he  left  quantities  of 
rough  notes  of  projects)  concerned  chiefly 
provincial  or  military  arrangements,  frontier 
plans,  ideas  for  the  municipalizing  of  Italy, 
and  so  forth.  But  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
laid  down  any  plan  for  any  system  which 

60 


Extinction  of  the  Republic 

might  keep  the  constitution  up  to  the  level 
of  efficiency  to  which  he  had  raised  it. 

That,  of  course,  is  the  feature  of  the  work 
done  by  Augustus,  whose  systematic  and  con- 
sistent idea  was  so  to  arrange  the  supreme 
power  that  it  could  not  but  be  taken 
over — and  taken  over  with  comparative  ease 
— by  a  successor:  and  he  took  good  care  to 
arrange  for  his  successor. 

As  we  know,  Caesar  had  a  son,  Csesarion. 
But  Csesarion  was  never  more  than  a  mere 
figurehead:  you  may  see  his  portrait — and 
a  very  poor  and  conventionalized  portrait 
it  is — with  that  of  his  father  and  mother, 
on  the  west  wall  of  Dendera  Temple  to-day. 
He  was  put  to  death  in  the  year  after  the 
battle  of  Actium.  Caesar  had  also  an  heir, 
the  young  Octavius,  afterward  Augustus,  a 
clever,  promising  grandnephew,  who  had  been 
left  to  finish  his  military  education  at  Apollonia, 
in  Illyricum.  But  Octavius  at  the  moment  of 
Caesar's  death  was  little  more  than  a  boy. 

There  were  Caesar's  two  lieutenants,  Antony 
and  Lepidus.  But  their  importance  seemed 

slight  enough  at  the  time;  at  any  rate,  the 

61 


Augustus 

Xiberatores'  did  not  reckon  with  it.  For 
Caesar,  neither  Antony  nor  Lepidus  had  been 
more  than  lieutenants. 

In  a  word,  there  was,  so  far  as  could  be 
seen,  no  successor  to  Caesar.  It  should  be 
possible,  surely,  to  restore  the  Republic! 

But  the  Liberators  were  speedily  dis- 
illusioned. The  populace  took  a  view  very 
different  from  their  own.  Whatever  they 
may  have  expected,  they  received  neither 
acclamation  nor  approval.  The  attitude  of 
the  veterans  of  Caesar's  army  was  even  less 
encouraging. 

Then  Antony  declared  himself,  and  the 
Liberators  saw  what  a  mistake  they  had  made 
in  sparing  him  and  Lepidus. 

On  the  very  day  after  the  assassination 
Antony  got  possession  of  Caesar's  will  and  all 
his  papers,  as  well  as  the  large  sums  of  money 
at  the  time  deposited  in  the  temple  of  Ops 
and  representing  revenue  due  to  Caesar.  He 
also  got  into  touch  instantly  with  Lepidus, 
who  had  the  armed  forces  at  his  command. 

The  Senate  met  to  discuss  the  situation. 

Here  the  Liberators  had  then*  chance:  they 

62 


Extinction  of  the  Republic 

should  have  revoked  all  Caesar's  edicts  and 
reversed  all  his  policy.  But  they  had  no 
legions  at  their  back;  they  held  their 
posts  in  the  State  through  the  liberality  of 
Caesar.  In  a  word,  they  temporized.  And 
the  Senate  temporized  also.  On  the  one 
hand,  Caesar's  decrees  and  appointments  were 
confirmed,  and  a  public  funeral  was  ordained. 
On  the  other,  a  general  amnesty  was  pro- 
claimed. 

The  Liberators  confirmed  their  own  various 
posts.  Marcus  Brutus  was  to  go  to  Mace- 
donia, Decimus  Brutus  to  Cisalpine  Gaul, 
Cassius  to  Syria:  these  three  concern  us 
more  than  the  rest. 

But  they  had  nine  months  to  wait  before 
they  could  take  up  these  posts.  Antony,  on 
the  other  hand,  had  the  money  and  the  men  for 
war,  and  was  acting  already.  He  profited  by 
the  fact  that  he  was  consul  for  the  year,  and 
took  control  in  the  name  of  law  and  order; 
he  also  declared  that  his  desire  was  to  carry 
out  such  work  as  Caesar  had  left  unfinished. 

Nominally,  and  as  he  declared,  he  was  only 
as  it  were  Caesar's  executor.  He  had  even 

63 


Augustus 

carried  a  proposal  in  the  Senate  that  the  office 
and  title  of  Dictator  should  be  abolished  for 
ever.  But  as  he  shut  himself  up  in  his  house, 
surrounded  himself  with  a  guard  of  six 
thousand  men,  and  issued  decree  after  decree 
to  suit  his  own  convenience  or  ambition, 
Rome  had  not  really  gained  much  by  the 
abolition  of  the  hated  title. 

Cicero's  phrase  Fructuosa  Officina  ('that 
most  prolific  factory')  exactly  hits  off 
Antony's  house.  Antony  had  all  the  acta 
Ccesaris,  or  rough  notes,  at  his  disposal;  and 
as  no  one  else  had  access  to  these  notes 
or  could  see  what  was  and  what  was  not  in 
them,  it  followed  that  Antony  both  could  and 
did  arrange  and  even  add  to  them  as  he 
wished.  Forgeries  might  be  suspected,  but 
could  not  be  proved. 

Antony  proposed  a  military  command  for 
himself  in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  the  province  actu- 
ally assigned  to  Decimus  Brutus;  and  he 
demanded  the  Macedonian  legions  (which 
really  were  assigned  to  Marcus  Brutus)  as  an 
additional  force  for  his  command. 

We  should  mention  here  one  other  per- 
64 


Extinction  of  the  Republic 

sonage,  who  for  the  moment  had  not  come 
into  prominence,  but  who  had  to  be 
reckoned  with  a  little  later  on.  This  was 
Sextus  Pompeius,  the  son  of  Pompeius.  He 
had  been  repressed  by  Caesar  in  45  B.C.  at 
Munda,  but  was  gradually  collecting  a 
following  in  Farther  Spain.  So  far  as  Rome 
was  concerned,  he  was  little  known  or  thought 
of  at  the  time. 

Octavius — Augustus  that  was  to  be — now 
makes  his  appearance  on  the  scene.  As  we 
have  said,  he  was  the  grand-nephew  and  heir 
of  Caesar,  who  had  adopted  him  into  his  own 
family,  the  Julian  gens,  and  had  sketched  out 
for  him  an  education  which  should  qualify 
him  later  on  for  high  office  in  the  State. 
He  had  enrolled  him  among  the  patricians 
and  had  made  him  his  'Master  of  the  Horse* 
at  the  age  of  eighteen.  The  title  was  purely 
honorary,  but  it  was  a  sign  of  Caesar's  favour. 
Octavius  was  the  son  of  Gaius  Octavius  by  a 
second  wife,  Atia,  who  was  the  daughter  of 
Caesar's  sister  Julia;  he  was  born  in  63  B.C. 

Octavius  heard  in  Illyricum  the  news  of  his 
great-uncle's  death.  Against  the  advice  _  of 

65 


Augustus 

his  friends  he  decided  to  start  for  Italy.  He 
did  not  know  definitely  at  the  time  that  he 
was  Caesar's  declared  heir,  but  he  had  even 
then,  in  his  nineteenth  year,  sufficient  fore- 
sight to  show  him  that  his  only  course  was 
to  go  to  Rome  immediately. 

On  his  landing  at  Lupia  he  learnt  that  he 
was  the  inheritor  of  Caesar's  wealth,  and  saw 
that  his  voyage  had  been  thoroughly  justified. 

But  he  was  fully  alive  to  his  disadvantages. 
He  had  much  to  conquer,  and  his  youth  was 
greatly  against  him  in  most  respects — its  only 
advantage,  indeed,  was  that  it  secured  him 
from  notice.  He  was  not  suspected  of  being 
a  possible  danger,  and  so  he  could  mature  his 
plans  without  too  much  risk. 

His  first  step  was  to  let  it  be  known  that 
he  merely  posed  as  Caesar's  legal  heir  in  a 
private  capacity:  he  laid  claim  to  the  pos- 
sessions bequeathed  to  him,  but  not  in  any 
sense  to  Caesar's  powers  or  offices.  He  at 
once  declared  his  intention  of  paying  to  the 
various  claimants  the  legacies  Caesar  had  left 
to  them. 

His  second  step  was  the  assumption  of  the 
66 


Extinction  of  the  Republic 

name  of  Caesar.  This  was  a  sure  means  of 
gaining  the  favour  of  Caesar's  veterans  and 
admirers;  it  might  arouse  some  suspicion 
among  Caesar's  opponents,  but,  after  all, 
Octavius,  as  grand-nephew  of  Julius  Caesar 
and  an  adopted  member  of  the  Julian  gens, 
had  a  perfect  right  to  assume  the  name  he 
now  took — Gaius  Julius  Caesar  Octavianus. 

He  began  his  'campaign'  quite  quietly. 
He  strengthened  his  claim  on  Caesar's  veterans 
and  on  the  lower  classes;  he  met  and  culti- 
vated Cicero,  playing  deftly  on  the  hopes 
and  ideals  of  the  old  orator,  who  really  began 
to  think  that,  in  spite  of  his  hated  name  of 
Caesar,  this  young  man  might  prove  to  be  a 
useful  helper  in  the  cause  of  reform  and  the 
restoration  of  the  old  regime. 

He  avoided  any  open"  rupture  with  Antony, 
though  he  contrived  to  detach  the  allegiance 
of  two  of  the  legions  who  had  left  Macedonia 
and  whom  Anthony  was  to  take  over  for  his 
command  in  Cisalpine  Gaul. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that'  both 
Antony  and  the  Liberators  took  little  notice 

of  the  claim  to  Caesar's  inheritance.     Antony 

67 


Augustus 

simply  refused  to  give  an  account  of  his 
stewardship:  the  money  had  all  been  spent  on 
State  objects — it  had,  indeed,  been  meant  for 
that!  So  the  young  Octavius — or,  as  we  must 
now  call  him,  Octavian — had  to  borrow  money 
to  pay  the  various  legacies  of  Caesar's  will. 

Octavian,  having  no  recognition  from 
Antony,  and  as  yet  no  command  or  position 
either  from  the  Senate  or  from  the  people, 
retired  to  Campania  and  collected  an  armed 
force  round  him,  but  did  not  give  any  in- 
dication as  to  his  possible  uses  for  it. 

Antony  now  took  action  on  his  own  ac- 
count, as  he  wished  to  enter  on  the  Cisalpine 
Gaul  command  and  to  displace  Decimus  Brutus, 
who  was  also  turning  his  attention  thereto. 
He  shut  up  and  besieged  Brutus  in  Mutina. 

This  gave  Octavian  his  opportunity.  He 
came  forward  at  once  as  the  champion  of  the 
Senate  and  the  defender  of  the  Republic,  and 
he  offered  to  use  the  force  at  his  command 
for  the  relief  of  Brutus.  The  Senate  accepted 
the  offer,  elected  Octavian,  in  spite  of  his 
youth,  to  senatorial  rank,  and  gave  him 

consular  authority  to  act  against  Antony  in 

68 


Extinction  of  the  Republic 

conjunction  with  the  two  consuls  of  the  year 
(43  B.C.),  Hirtius  and  Pansa. 

The  campaign  ended  in  April  43  B.C.: 
Antony  was  driven  from  Mutina,  and  Deci- 
mus  Brutus  was  released  from  his  siege. 

The  victory,  admirable  as  it  seemed  to  be 
at  the  time,  was,  in  point  of  fact,  a  disaster 
for  the  Republic.  Hirtius  and  Pansa  both 
died,  the  one  in  the  battle,  the  other  of  wounds 
received  in  an  earlier  engagement. 

Also  Antony  escaped.  Decimus  Brutus, 
ignorant  of  the  full  extent  of  support  available 
for  him  outside  Mutina,  and  afraid  to  force 
further  exertions  on  the  enfeebled  army 
under  his  command,  had  considered  himself 
unable  to  pursue  him.  Octavian,  from 
motives  that  soon  explained  themselves, 
would  not  attempt  pursuit,  but  deliberately 
allowed  Antony  to  make  his  retreat  in  safety. 

The  Senate  then  made  their  great  mistake. 
Octavian  stood  for  the  consulship  for  42  B.C. 
They  neglected  his  claims  for  this,  and,  more- 
over, they  gave  the  sole  command  of  the 
army  to  Decimus  Brutus.  Octavian  promptly 

marched  on  Rome   with  eight  legions,   and 

69 


Augustus 

forced  the  Senate  to  give  him  the  consulship 
he  desired. 

Antony  had  profited  by  his  escape.  He  had 
joined  Lepidus  at  Forum  Julii  (near  the  modern 
Nice,)  and  the  two  had  secured  the  adhesion 
of  Pollio,  who  was  in  command  of  Farther 
Spain,  and  Plancus,  who  held  Northern  Gaul. 

Then  came  the  next  great  blow  to  the 
Senate  and  the  Republic  in  general.  This 
was  the  death  of  Decimus  Brutus,  the  best 
of  the  Republicans  in  many  ways.  He  was 
murdered  at  Aquileia  while  on  his  way  to 
join  his  brother  in  Macedonia. 

Octavian  turned  his  back  on  what  had 
seemed  to  be  his  former  policy — the  policy 
which  had  almost  commended  him  to  the 
approval  of  Cicero.  He  arranged  a  meeting 
with  Antony  and  Lepidus  at  Bononia,  and 
the  three  were  appointed — rather  they  caused 
themselves  to  be  appointed — triumvirs '  for  the 
reorganization  of  the  State  during  a  period  of 
five  years. '  It  was  an  official  appointment,  un- 
like the  Triumvirate  of  Csesar,  Pompeius,  and 
Crassus,  which  had  been  merely  an  unofficial 

agreement  between  the  three  men  concerned. 

70 


CHAPTER  V:  The  Trium- 
virate 

WITH      the      appointment      of      the 
Triumvirate     the     hopes     of     the 
Republicans     were     at     an     end. 
The  man  in  whom  they  had  placed  their  trust 
had  gone  over,  openly  and  flagrantly,  to  the 
enemy:  it  was  not  for  nothing  that  he  had 
taken  the  name  of  Caesar! 

The  reign  of  the  Triumvirate  began  after 
the  most  orthodox  traditions  of  Sulla's  day 
— proscription  and  confiscation  were  rife. 
Among  the  proscribed  was  Cicero,  the  last 
of  the  orator-philosopher-statesmen.  The 
massacre  was  extended  right  and  left  among 
all  who  had  been  concerned,  or  could  have 
been  concerned,  in  the  death  of  Caesar. 

We  know  how  Antony  had  comported 
himself  on  the  day  when  he  addressed  the 
people  above  the  dead  body  of  his  master. 
He  now  put  into  action,  in  company  with 
Octavian,  all  that  he  had  expressed  in 
words.  Csesar  was  deified  by  popular  accord, 
and  the  punishment  of  his  murderers  was 
declared  to  be  an  act  of  high  filial  piety. 


Augustus 

An  oath  was  also  taken  by  the  plebs,  the 
Senate,  and  the  Triumvirate  that  Csesar's 
ordinances  were  to  be  observed. 

Among  those  ordinances  were  certainly 
arrangements  for  rewarding  with  gifts  of 
land  the  soldiers  who  had  served  under  him. 

As  we  know,  Caesar  had  been  most  tactful 
in  his  land  allotment  policy,  and  careful  not 
to  disturb  or  cause  any  prejudice  or  injus- 
tice to  existing  landholders.  His  successors 
carried  out  his  scheme  of  rewards — with  lavish 
additions — but  threw  all  his  tact  and  his 
justice  to  the  winds:  they  confiscated  where 
and  how  they  pleased.  True,  they  had  a 
task  larger  than  that  of  Csesar,  for  they  had 
not  only  to  carry  out  his  bequests,  but  also  to 
gain  the  soldiers'  goodwill  for  themselves. 

For  the  outer  world  also  they  had  much  to 
do.  They  were  masters  of  Rome,  Italy,  Spain, 
and  Gaul.  But  in  Sicily  and  the  Western  Medi- 
terranean Sextus  Pompeius  was  in  control: 
he  had  with  him  by  now  a  strong  force,  both 
military  and  naval,  backed  by  the  presence  of 
a  large  number  of  fugitives  from  Italy. 

Brutus  and  Cassius  held  Macedonia,  Achaia, 

72 


The  Triumvirate 

Asia  Minor,  and  Syria;  and  they  had  with 
them  almost  all  that  was  left  of  the  Repub- 
lican faction. 

In  the  autumn  of  42  B.C.  Antony  and 
Octavian  decided  to  go  to  meet  Brutus,  whose 
stronghold  was  Philippi.  They  gave  Lepidus 
the  command  of  Italy. 

Just  as  in  the  First  Triumvirate  Crassus 
had  been  the  least  important  factor,  so  in 
this  Second  Triumvirate  Lepidus  was  the 
negligible  quantity. 

Antony  and  Octavian  duly  met  their 
opponents.  Brutus  had  sufficient  ability  and 
experience  to  see  that  his  best  course  was  to 
remain  in  his  entrenchments  and  tire  out  his 
adversaries  by  a  policy  of  delay. 

He  had  still  the  chance  of  adding  to  his 
strength  by  the  reception  of  fugitives,  whereas 
his  enemies  might  have  to  face  defections, 
want  of  supplies,  the  likelihood  of  revolts  at 
home,  and  the  danger  of  general  weakening. 

But  his  subordinates  were  eager  to  fight, 
and  he  was  not  strong  enough  to  restrain  them. 
The  first  day  of  battle  was,  in  reality,  doubt- 
ful in  its  results:  Brutus  beat  off  the  attack 

73 


Augustus 

of  Octavian.  But  Cassius,  outmanoeuvred  by 
Antony,  gave  up  the  cause  as  lost  and  com- 
mitted suicide,  and  the  Republican  army 
again  retired  to  their  entrenchments. 

Again  Brutus  attempted  the  policy  of 
patience,  and  again  his  officers  were  too 
strong  for  him.  He  was  defeated;  but  he 
met  his  death  bravely.  His  men  surrendered 
en  masse  to  the  number  of  fourteen  thou- 
sand, and  his  officers  were  slain  or  captured, 
a  few  only  of  them  escaping. 

Almost  the  whole  of  his  fleet  succeeded  in 
getting  away  and  joining  the  fleet  of  Sextus 
Pompeius,  with  the  exception  of  one  squadron 
which  remained  in  the  JSgean  Sea,  under 
Domitius  Ahenobarbus. 

The  Triumvirate — or  rather  the  two  active 
members  of  it — now  arranged  that  Antony 
should  take  supreme  command  of  the  East, 
with  the  view  of  restoring  order  and  also 
collecting  money  for  the  payment  of  the 
legions  of  the  victorious  army,  while  Octavian 
was  to  return  to  Italy  and  complete  his  allot- 
ment of  land  to  veterans,  and  then  undertake 
the  defeat  and  suppression  of  Sextus  Pompeius. 

74 


The  Triumvirate 

Antony  seems  to  have  lost  all  his  Western 
and  Roman  instincts  as  soon  as  he  set  foot 
on  Eastern  soil:  he  wasted  his  time  in  use- 
less pomp  and  ceremony,  and  entered  upon 
the  life  of  Oriental  luxury  and  laziness  which 
was  to  prove  his  downfall. 

Octavian  behaved  in  a  very  different 
manner:  he  set  to  work  resolutely,  but 
tactfully,  to  gather  into  his  hands  the  full 
control  of  the  State  machinery  of  Rome. 

One  of  his  tasks  was  the  usual  land  allot- 
ment for  the  many  veterans  who  had  claims 
on  him.  Mutina  and  Philippi  had  greatly 
added  to  their  number.  Here  trouble  arose, 
partly  through  the  dissatisfaction  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Italian  cities,  which 
were  destined  for  the  soldiers,  and  partly 
through  the  agency  of  Antony's  brother, 
Lucius  Antonius.  Lucius  Antonius  may  pos- 
sibly have  had  views  of  his  own  as  to  the 
restoration  of  the  old  regime;  perhaps  it  was 
that  he  had  hoped  to  share  the  business  of 
allotment  with  Octavian.  In  any  case,  he 
was  instigated  by  Fulvia,  Antony's  wife,  who 
was  unduly  zealous  in  her  absent  husband's 

75 


Augustus 

cause.  Lucius  Antonius  came  forward  as  the 
champion  of  all  who  were  either  evicted  or 
threatened,  and  he  marched  on  Rome  with  a 
fairly  considerable  following.  But  he  retired 
to  Perusia  before  the  advance  of  Octavian. 
Octavian  besieged  Perusia,  and  Antonius 
surrendered  in  January  40  B.C.  The  land 
difficulty  was  ended  thereby,  and  Italy  was 
safely  in  the  hands  of  Octavian,  who  now  went 
to  Gaul  and  took  formal  possession  of  it  for 
himself — hardly  a  fair  action,  as  it  belonged, 
strictly  speaking,  to  Antony  as  his  share  of 
provincial  command,  in  virtue  of  arrange- 
ments made  after  Philippi. 

Octavian  made  free  with  yet  another 
province  belonging  to  Antony — Africa;  he 
offered  it  to  Lepidus  in  exchange  for  the 
command  (only  nominal  in  reality)  of  Italy, 
which  had  been  assigned  to  the  latter. 

He  now  commenced  operations  against 
Sextus  Pompeius,  who  had  been  making  his 
presence  felt  and  causing  infinite  trouble  by 
ravaging  the  coasts  of  Italy,  and,  what  was 
far  more  important,  cutting  off  all  foreign  sup- 
plies with  his  pirate  ships.  Agrippa,  who  was 

76 


The  Triumvirate 

by  far  the  most  able  of  Octavian's  lieutenants, 
was  sent  down  to  Sicily  to  dislodge  Sextus 
Pompeius.  But  operations  were  abruptly 
suspended  by  the  news  that  Antony  proposed 
corning  to  Italy  and  claiming  his  rights. 

Antony  had  been  touring  his  Eastern 
domains  in  sovereign  state,  actually  parading 
in  the  costume  attributed  to  Dionysus,  who 
was  the  god  especially  honoured  in  Asia  Minor. 
At  Tarsus  he  met  Cleopatra,  the  famous 
Egyptian  princess,  at  a  conference  of  his 
vassal  kings  and  princes.  Her  object  was, 
almost  certainly,  his  subjection;  she  had  gone 
to  Tarsus  with  that  end  in  view;  and  she 
most  fully  succeeded.  Antony  accompanied 
her  to  Alexandria,  and  remained  there  during 
the  year  41  and  until  40  B.C.,  qualifying  better 
and  better  for  the  role  of  the  Oriental  despot. 

In  the  spring  of  40  B.C.  he  left  for  Asia  and 
then  for  Greece.  In  Greece  he  heard  of  the 
fall  of  Perusia  and  the  surrender  of  his  brother. 
It  was  a  critical  situation  for  Octavian. 
Antony,  with  the  resources  of  Egypt  and  the 
East  at  his  command  (not  to  mention  his 
legions),  would  have  been  too  dangerous; 

77 


Augustus 

moreover,  he  might  join  Sextus  Pompeius  and 
blockade  Italy.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there 
had  been  an  agreement  between  the  two  to 
this  effect.  Antony  had  conciliated  Sextus 
Pompeius  by  offering  to  repeal  the  sentence 
of  outlawry  passed  against  him,  and  also  to 
restore  his  father's  property. 

But  if  Octavian  did  not  want  war,  neither 
did  Antony;  he  wanted  to  return  to  the  East, 
and  to  undertake  a  campaign  against  Parthia. 
His  wife,  Fulvia,  was  the  firebrand.  But — 
fortunately  for  the  peace  of  Italy  and  the 
ultimate  success  of  Octavian — Fulvia  died, 
and  the  struggle  between  the  two  triumvirs 
was  postponed  for  nine  years.  It  was  just 
in  time,  this  death  of  Fulvia.  Antony  had 
gone  so  far  as  to  lay  siege  to  Brundisium.  He 
relinquished  this,  and  the  peace  of  Brundi- 
sium was  signed.  Octavian  was  to  have  Italy 
and  the  West,  Antony  the  East,  Macedonia, 
and  Achaia.  Lepidus  was  allowed  to  stay  in 
Africa.  To  make  the  peace  more  binding, 
Antony  married  Octavia,  the  sister  of  Octavian. 

A  treaty  was  made  at  Misenum  in  the  next 
year,  whereby  Sextus  Pompeius  was  for  the 

78 


The  Triumvirate 

time  being  pacified  by  the  concession  of  Sicily 
and  Sardinia  from  Octavian  and  of  Achaia 
from  Antony,  to  hold  for  five  years — with  the 
additional  clause  that  any  political  or  other 
refugees  who  wished  might  leave  him  and 
return  to  Italy  under  a  free  pardon. 

Antony  went  to  Greece  in  the  summer  of 
39  B.C.,  and  Octavian  went  back  to  Gaul,  to 
resume  his  work  of  organizing  that  country. 

It  was  high  time  now  for  Antony  to  take 
some  action  with  regard  to  Parthia. 

Orodes,  the  Parthian  king,  had  made  an 
alliance  with  Brutus  and  Cassius,  who  needed 
any  help  they  could  get:  he  had  even  sent 
Parthian  cavalry  to  fight  at  Philippi.  He 
now  was  hoping  for  some  sort  of  profitable 
consequence  of  his  alliance,  considering  the 
disturbed  state  of  affairs  in  the  Roman  Empire. 
He  meditated  a  raid  on  Syria,  and  would 
have  carried  it  out  in  40  B.C.,  had  he  not  heard 
that  Antony  intended  to  invade  his  own  king- 
dom. The  fear  of  Antony  made  him  hesitate. 

But  Antony  was  wasting  his  time  in  Egypt 
— in  'dalliance  and'  (perhaps)  'wit,'  as  one 
poet  has  it.  Also  Orodes  had  at  his  court 

79 


Augustus 

a  powerful  agent  of  disturbance,  Quintus 
Labienus.  This  man  was  the  son  of  Titus 
Labienus,  once  one  of  Caesar's  most  trusted 
lieutenants  in  Gaul,  and  later  on  his  bitterest 
enemy  in  Spain. 

Quintus  used  all  his  influence  and  per- 
suaded Orodes  to  entrust  to  him  the  campaign 
he  wished  to  carry  out:  and  he  had  a  rapid 
and  apparently  complete  success,  conquering 
Cilicia  and  all  Syria,  with  the  exception  of  the 
impregnable  fortress  of  Tyre.  It  was,  in  fact, 
a  repetition  of  88  B.C.  Just  as  Rome  had 
lost  all  Asia  in  that  year,  thanks  to  the  quar- 
rels of  her  most  prominent  men,  so,  from  simi- 
lar quarrels,  she  lost  Asia  again  in  40  B.C. 

Indeed,  Labienus  was  counting  on  a  civil 
war  in  Italy;  but  that,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
averted  by  the  treaty  of  Brundisium. 

At  last  Antony  awoke;  at  least  he  sent 
a  useful  representative,  Publius  Ventidius 
Bassus.  Bassus  was  a  man  of  eventful 
history.  He  had  fought  in  the  Social  War 
and  had  figured  as  a  captive  in  the  triumph 
of  Gneius  Pompeius  Strabo  in  89  B.C.  Later 

on  he  had  entered  the  army,  had  risen  from 

80 


The  Triumvirate 

the  ranks,  had  won  the  favour  of  Caesar  and 
the  governorship  of  Narbonese  Gaul.  He 
had  at  one  time,  so  it  is  said,  made  his  living 
by  dealing  in  mules.  In  any  case,  he  was  a 
most  capable  soldier,  and  he  completely  de- 
feated Labienus  and  drove  him  out  of  Syria. 
The  next  year  (38  B.C.)  he  utterly  routed 
the  Parthians  at  Gindarus — curiously  enough, 
on  the  anniversary  of  the  day,  June  9th, 
on  which  the  Parthians  had  overwhelmed 
Crassus  in  53  B.C.  Among  the  slain  was 
Pacorus,  the  son  of  Orodes.  In  the  autumn 
of  38  B.C.  Bassus  rode  in  triumph — his  own 
triumph — through  the  streets  of  Rome  that 
had  once  seen  him  pass  as  a  captive  in  the 
triumph  of  another. 

Octavian  in  38  B.C.  married  Livia,  the 
wife  of  Tiberius  Claudius  Nero.  He  had 
divorced  his  wife  Scribonia  the  year  before. 
Livia  had  a  son,  Tiberius,  who  afterward  suc- 
ceeded Octavian  as  emperor.  Another  son, 
Drusus,  was  born  three  months  after  the 
divorce.  Drusus  conquered  the  Rseti,  and 
was  the  father  of  Germanicus  and  Claudius. 

Italy  and  the  West  were  now  in  a  thorough 

81 


Augustus 

state  of  order  and  repose,  thanks  to  the 
ability  and  leniency  of  Octavian.  But  the 
inevitable  rupture  between  him  and  Sextus 
Pompeius  now  occurred.  Menas,  a  Greek 
freedman  and  the  admiral-in-chief  of  Sextus's 
fleet,  went  over  to  Octavian,  and  brought  with 
him  the  control  of  Sardinia,  as  well  as  his 
troops  and  his  fleet.  Octavian  now  thought 
he  was  strong  enough  to  attack  Sextus,  but 
he  found  out  his  mistake.  The  first  fight,  off 
Cumse,  was  drawn;  in  the  second,  off  the 
Scyllsean  promontory,  Sextus  Pompeius  won 
a  complete  victory,  and  Octavian  had  to 
admit  that  by  sea  he  was  not  nearly  power- 
ful enough  for  his  far  more  experienced 
rival. 

Octavian  garrisoned  the  coasts,  so  as  to 
prevent  raids  and  blockades  as  far  as  he 
might;  and  he  set  himself  to  the  task  of 
building  up  a  powerful  fleet.  He  arranged 
a  harbour  specially  for  this  purpose  in  the 
Bay  of  Naples,  cutting  the  dam  known  as 
the  Via  Herculanea  between  the  open  sea  and 
the  Lucrine  Lake,  and  making  a  canal  between 

the  Lucrine  Lake  and  Lake  Avernus,  which  lay 

82 


The  Triumvirate 

about  a  mile  inland.  Thus  he  had  an  outer  and 
an  inner  harbour;  and  Agrippa,  whom  he  re- 
called from  Gaul  specially  for  the  work,  had 
ample  room  not  only  to  build  his  new  vessels, 
but  to  manoeuvre  them  and  so  train  his 
men. 

The  year  37  B.C.  marks  the  last  peaceful 
meeting  between  Octavian  and  Antony.  As 
usual  the  peace  was  a  case  of  patchwork. 
Antony  reached  Brundisium  with  300  ships: 
these  were  by  way  of  a  contribution  to  the 
fleet  needed  against  Sextus  Pompeius.  But 
Antony  was  nothing  if  not  consistent  in 
his  slackness.  Octavian  had  closed  the  port 
of  Brundisium,  and  Antony  was  angry  at 
having  to  land  at  Tarentum.  A  reconcilia- 
tion was  effected  by  Octavia  and  Maecenas, 
who  now  comes  to  the  front  as  one  of 
Octavian's  most  trusted  advisers. 

The  Triumvirate  was  renewed  for  another 
period  of  five  years.  Antony  gave  Octavian 
120  ships,  and  took  for  himself  20,000  Roman 
troops  and  departed  for  Syria,  leaving  his 
wife,  Octavia ,  in  Italy. 

Octavian  continued  his  naval  preparations, 
83 


Augustus 

and  by  the  next  year,  36  B.C.,  he  had  a 
thoroughly  good  fleet  at  his  disposal. 

He  commenced  his  attack  on  Sextus 
Pompeius  on  July  1st.  He  and  his  lieu- 
tenant, Agrippa,  were  to  attack  from  the 
north,  Antony's  squadron  of  120  ships  were 
to  threaten  from  the  east,  and  Lepidus  with 
another  fleet  was  to  join  the  attack  from  the 
south.  But  luck  was  on  the  side  of  Sextus 
Pompeius.  Lepidus  had  not  arrived  when 
the  time  came;  and  Octavian  met  with  a 
gale  of  wind  and  had  to  flee  to  Lipara.  He 
left  his  fleet  there  and  crossed  to  Italy,  whence 
he  brought  his  troops  to  Tauromenium  (now 
Taormina).  There  Sextus  attacked  him,  and 
again  he  fled  to  Italy,  in  great  difficulties  from 
the  harassing  tactics  of  Sextus's  light  troops. 

The  squadron  left  by  Antony  was  now  in 
the  straits  of  Messina,  under  Cornificius. 
Agrippa  was  on  the  northern  Sicilian  coast: 
he  had  had  some  success  and  had  taken 
Tyndaris  and  Mylae,  at  which  latter  city  he 
established  his  headquarters.  Here  messages 
reached  him  from  Cornificius,  who  wished  to 
effect  a  junction  with  him.  This  was  success- 

84 


The  Triumvirate 

fully  carried  out,  and  the  two  together  frus- 
trated Sextus's  attempts  to  prevent  Octavian 
from  landing  in  Sicily.  Then  at  last  Lepidus 
arrived,  and  the  four  commanders  joined 
forces  and  defeated  Sextus  Pompeius  once 
and  for  all  at  Naulochus:  he  fled,  and  his 
army  and  fleet  surrendered. 

There  is  little  more  to  be  said  so  far  as 
Sextus  is  concerned.  He  went  to  Lesbos  in  the 
hope  of  intriguing  with  Antony.  On  his  arrival 
there  he  heard  that  Antony  was  campaigning 
beyond  the  Euphrates  and  was  in  difficulties; 
so  he  began  planning  a  raid  on  Asia;  but  he 
was  slain  by  one  of  Antony's  legates. 

Sextus  Pompeius  has  no  claim  to  distinc- 
tion except  that  he  held  his  own  for  so  many 
years  with  a  fleet  manned  by  runaway  slaves 
and  led  by  Greek  freedmen.  He  was  little 
better  than  a  corsair  chief — a  contrast  to  his 
father,  whose  main  distinction  it  was  that  he 
had  suppressed  the  Mediterranean  pirates! 
He  owed  his  success  largely  to  the  fact  that 
he  was  in  a  position  to  cut  off  the  foreign  sup- 
plies of  Italy,  which  was  not  a  self-supporting 
country.  That  he  was  an  able  general  is 

85 


Augustus 

proved  by  the  fact  that  he  repeatedly  de- 
feated Octavian;  but  he  was  always  too 
conceited  and  too  short-sighted  to  follow  up 
his  victories.  If  he  was  ever  sought  out  and 
conciliated — or  threatened — by  the  members 
of  the  Triumvirate,  it  was  simply  because 
he  could  imperil  Italy  by  cutting  off  her 
supplies. 

After  the  defeat  of  Sextus  Pompeius, 
Lepidus,  now  at  Messina,  seems  to  have 
realized  that  his  colleagues  were  by  no  means 
treating  him  with  the  consideration  he  had  a 
right  to  expect.  So  he  demanded  possession 
of  Sicily,  and  threatened  Octavian  with  his 
troops.  Fighting  would  have  resulted,  but 
the  soldiers  on  both  sides  were  sick  of  war. 
Octavian  won  over  Lepidus' s  troops,  and  sent 
Lepidus  himself  as  a  prisoner  to  Circeii,  where 
he  died  in  12  B.C.  The  only  vestige  of  honour 
he  was  allowed  to  retain  was  his  office  of 
Pontiff;  and  it  was  rather  a  mockery,  con- 
sidering that  that  very  office  had  been  one  of 
the  chief  temptations  that  had  induced  him 
to  join  the  other  triumvirs. 

Octavian  was  now  sole  master  of  the  West. 
86 


The  Triumvirate 

Africa  formed  one  united  province  under  the 
firm  rule  of  Statilius  Taurus,  Spain  was  in 
thorough  order  in  the  hands  of  Domitius 
Calvinus,  and  Northern  Gaul  was  under  the 
command  of  that  most  excellent  general  and 
administrator,  Agrippa.  In  Italy  there  was 
no  one  to  raise  the  slightest  interference  with 
Octavian.  Indeed,  there  was  no  likelihood  of 
anything  but  contentment  under  his  rule. 
He  was  no  longer  feared  as  the  chief  mover 
in  proscription;  he  had  now  adopted  a  per- 
manent leniency  as  his  policy. 

He  had  by  now  a  huge  army  at  his  com- 
mand. He  discharged  and  gave  lands  (in 
Italy  and  Southern  Gaul)  to  the  veterans  of 
Mutina  and  Philippi,  but  he  kept  as  standing 
army  a  force  of  forty-five  legions,  24,000 
cavalry,  and  35,000  light  troops. 

He  put  an  end  to  the  danger  of  the  presence 
of  Sextus  Pompeius's  former  followers,  the 
runaway  slaves;  he  crucified  6000,  and  sent 
some  30,000  back  to  their  original  masters. 

He  repressed  severely  all  brigandage.  He 
also — and  this  appealed  strongly  to  every  one 
—repealed  many  of  the  taxes  that  had  been 

87 


Augustus 

lately  imposed.  He  cancelled  arrears  of  debt 
due  to  the  Treasury;  and — most  reassuring 
step  of  all — he  burnt  publicly  the  various 
lists  of  suspects,  outlaws,  and  men  proscribed, 
and  with  these  lists  a  number  of  letters 
that  compromised  those  who  had  secretly 
corresponded  with  Sextus  Pompeius. 

Octavian  now  even  professed  that  he  in- 
tended to  restore  the  ancient  constitution, 
and  that  he  was  only  awaiting  Antony's 
return  and  would  then  make  this  restoration 
formally.  He  encouraged  the  regular  magis- 
trates to  continue  then*  functions,  though  one 
cannot  but  remember  that  while  he  was 
away  or  occupied,  as  was  the  case  from  36  to 
34  B.C.,  he  left  affairs  in  the  sole  charge  of 
Maecenas,  who  was  neither  a  magistrate  nor 
even  a  senator.  However,  Rome  was  easily 
satisfied  in  those  days,  and  a  burnt  suspect- 
list  made  up  handsomely  for  slight  lapses  from 
strict  constitutionalism.  Every  one  could  see 
that  without  the  supremacy  of  Octavian  it 
was  no  use  expecting  any  semblance  of  order 
or  tranquillity  in  the  State;  and  they  showed 
their  feelings  clearly  enough  by  the  honours 


The  Triumvirate 

they  showered  on  him  when  he  returned  from 
his  Sicilian  campaign  against  Sextus  Pom- 
peius:  among  these  honours  was  the  gift, 
for  life,  of  the  tribunician  power,  which 
practically  made  him  supreme  over  all  other 
magistrates,  in  that  it  gave  him  the  right  to 
propose  in  theory — as  he  disposed  in  fact— 
any  and  all  extraordinary  commands  that  he 
might  think  necessary. 

He  was  now  the  master  of  one  half  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  only  one  war — external 
and  not  civil — menaced  his  supremacy. 
This  was  caused  by  the  attitude  of  Illyria 
(the  lapydes)  and  Pannonia.  The  latter  was 
more  than  once  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  Rome. 
The  Pannonians  were  always  a  resolute  and 
turbulent  nation. 

Octavian  gained  a  victory  at  Siscia  (Sissec) 
in  35  B.C.,  but  he  was  unable  to  do  more  than 
put  a  garrison  there  and  safeguard  Roman 
authority  along  the  line  of  the  Save  and 
Drave  rivers. 


89 


CHAPTER  VI:    The  Begin- 
ning of  Empire 

IN  33  B.C.  the  attitude  of  Antony  became 
a  serious  menace  not  only  to  Octavian, 
but  to  Rome  also. 

As  we  have  shown,  Antony  had  throughout 
had  an  idea  of  invading  Parthia  and  recover- 
ing the  laurels  lost  by  Crassus.  But  Cleopatra 
had  gained  more  and  more  ascendancy  over 
him,  and  had  always  restrained  him  at  the 
critical  moments  when  he  made  up  his  mind 
for  action.  In  38  and  in  37  B.C.  he  made  up 
his  mind,  but  changed  it;  the  most  he  did 
was  to  make  various  alterations  concerning 
the  different  kings  of  Syria  and  Asia  Minor, 
and  to  offend  Roman  feeling  by  presenting 
Cleopatra  with  lands  in  the  Roman  provinces 
of  Syria  and  Cilicia.  In  36  B.C.  he  really 
started,  and  crossed  the  Euphrates.  He 
made  an  alliance  with  Artavasdes,  king  of 
Armenia,  and  proceeded  against  the  king  of 
Media,  who  was  Artavasdes'  enemy,  intend- 
ing himself  to  march  rapidly  on  Gazaca.  He 
left  his  lieutenant  Oppius  with  the  baggage 

and  two  legions  at  the  Median  frontier.     But 

90 


The  Beginning  of  Empire 

Oppius  was  attacked,  and  his  force  cut  to 
pieces.  Antony  had  heard  of  his  danger 
and  had  hurried  back,  but  was  too  late. 
He  returned  to  Gazaca,  but  everything 
went  against  him,  and  he  had  to  conduct  a 
long  and  exceedingly  difficult  retreat  (in 
which  he  showed  some  of  his  old  ability) 
over  the  mountains  into  Syria.  He  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  Artavasdes  had  played 
him  false,  or  had  at  least  been  culpably 
indolent.  But  he  found  consolation  with 
Cleopatra  and  deferred  any  action  until 
34  B.C.  He  then  set  out  on  a  campaign 
against  Artavasdes,  and  contrived  to  induce 
the  latter  to  come  to  his  camp,  where  he  made 
him  prisoner  and  deposed  him  from,  his 
kingdom.  Artavasdes'  son,  Artaxes,  fled  to 
Parthia,  and  Antony  returned  to  Alexandria, 
where  he  celebrated  his  rather  cheap  achieve- 
ment with  a  triumph. 

The  real  danger  to  Rome  was  not  Antony, 
but  Cleopatra.  She  had  caused  herself  to 
be  proclaimed  *  Queen  of  Kings';  she  had 
insisted  on  the  gift  of  Syria,  Cilicia,  Cyprus, 
Africa,  and  Cyrenaica  to  herself  and  to  her 

91 


Augustus 

sons;  and  she  caused  Csesarion  to  be  pro- 
claimed as  rightful  heir  to  Caesar,  whose 
natural  son  he  was.  Antony  was  entirely  in 
her  hands,  and  it  was  through  her  that  he 
was  now  a  menace  to  Octavian. 

Octavian  took  up  the  challenge,  and  de- 
nounced Antony  to  the  Senate  as  an  enemy 
of  Rome. 

Antony,  on  his  side,  took  definite  action 
also.  He  visited  Armenia,  then  made  an 
alliance  with  his  former  enemy  the  king  of 
Media,  then  went  to  Greece  with  his  troops; 
but  he  followed  his  usual  custom  and  stayed 
at  Athens  with  Cleopatra  instead  of  attacking 
Italy  at  once. 

Any  prospects  Antony  might  have  had  of 
a  reconciliation  either  with  Octavian  or  with 
Rome  were  entirely  destroyed  by  the  dis- 
covery and  publication  of  his  will,  in  which 
he  named  Cleopatra's  sons  as  his  heirs,  and 
also  by  his  divorcing  Octavia  in  favour  of 
Cleopatra.  The  Senate  in  32  B.C.  declared 
war  on  Cleopatra,  and  passed  a  measure  de- 
priving Antony  of  his  Eastern  command.  It 

was   war   now,    once   and   for   all.     And    if 

92 


The  Beginning  of  Empire 

Antony  had  acted  in  32  B.C.,  that  war  might 
have  turned  in  his  favour. 

He  took  up  exactly  the  position  best  suited 
for  his  attack,  namely,  Actium,  where  he  har- 
boured his  fleet  and  entrenched  his  legions; 
the  place  practically  commanded  the  eastern 
Italian  coast.  He  had  under  him  sixteen 
legions  and  800  ships,  and,  more  important 
even  than  these,  all  the  wealth  of  Egypt, 
given  as  he  wanted  it  by  Cleopatra. 

To  Octavian,  on  the  other  hand,  money 
was  the  great  difficulty,  as  Italy  was  practi- 
cally] exhausted  by  the  long  years  of  warfare; 
and  Octavian  had  no  such  treasury  as  Egypt 
on  which  to  draw. 

But  Antony  left  Actium  and  went  to  Patrae 
for  the  winter,  thus  giving  Octavian  the  time 
he  wanted  for  the  completion  of  his  prepa- 
rations. 

In  the  spring  of  31  B.C.  Octavian's  fleet  was 
ready.  He  sent  Agrippa  with  a  squadron  of 
fast-sailing  vessels  to  harass  the  garrison 
which  Antony  had  stationed  on  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  coast  and  to  cut  off  supplies  from  Egypt 
and  Asia;  he  himself  crossed  from  Brundisium 

93 


Augustus 

to  the  Epirot  coast,  and  was  successful  in 
blockading  Antony's  force;  his  legions  held 
the  northern  promontory  and  were  entrenched 
on  the  landward  side,  while  his  fleet  remained 
at  the  mouth  of  the  straits  that  led  to  the 
Ambracian  Gulf,  where  lay  Antony's  ships. 

Antony  should  at  least  have  attempted  to 
decoy  Octavian's  troops  into  the  Thessalian 
plains;  then,  in  the  open  country,  his  superi- 
ority in  numbers,  and  in  tactics,  would  have 
assured  him  the  victory.  This  was  the  advice 
given  him  by  such  Roman  officers  as  he  had 
with  him,  but  he  disregarded  it.  Of  all  futile 
courses  he  chose  the  most  futile:  he  attempted 
to  invest  the  position  of  Octavian's  troops. 

Agrippa's  squadron  then  appeared  on  the 
scene,  and  the  need  of  retiring  became  still 
more  urgent.  But  still  Antony  would  not 
yield.  Cleopatra  was  against  retreat;  Antony, 
moreover,  was  afraid  that  a  retreat  might  lose 
him  his  fleet  and  also  cause  the  defection 
of  his  Asiatic  allies,  some  of  whom  were 
already  showing  an  inclination  to  desert 
him. 

He  took  the  desperate  resolve  of  cutting 

94 


The  Beginning  of  Empire 

his  way  through  his  enemy's  ships,  and 
began  the  attempt  on  the  2nd  of  September, 
31  B.C. 

The  start  was  not  unsuccessful:  Octavian 
could  do  little  so  long  as  his  enemy  remained 
in  the  narrow  straits.  But  as  the  wind 
freshened  Antony  had  to  take  to  the  open 
water  to  gain  sea-room.  Still  neither  side 
had  any  very  conspicuous  advantage,  nor 
was  Antony's  cause  by  any  means  lost. 

In  the  afternoon  Cleopatra's  Egyptian 
squadron  suddenly  set  sail  and  left  the  scene 
of  action,  and  Antony  followed  in  his  own 
vessel,  giving  up  all  his  hopes  of  victory. 

His  ships  fought  on  gallantly,  but  Octavian's 
strength  was  too  great;  moreover,  his  men  were 
equipped  with  fire-balls,  which  worked  great 
destruction.  By  the  next  morning  nothing 
was  left  of  Antony's  superb  fleet  save  wreckage 
and  plunder.  His  troops,  seeing  how  hope- 
less their  case  was,  surrendered  and  went 
over  bodily  to  Octavian  within  a  few  days. 
Octavian  had  won  his  inheritance. 

As  usual  he  set  himself  with  all  his  tact  to 
the  work  of  recovering  her  Eastern  possessions 

95 


Augustus 

for  Rome — those  possessions  which,  so  we 
may  almost  say,  had  so  nearly  passed  into 
the  keeping  of  Cleopatra.  He  was,  as  ever, 
most  skilful  and  diplomatic,  abstaining  en- 
tirely from  vengeance  or  plunder,  respecting, 
especially  in  Greece,  municipal  liberty,  and 
restoring  treasures  and  statues. 

Antony  had  imposed  various  new  kings  on 
different  small  states:  Octavian  confirmed 
these  in  their  position;  and  he  even  left 
unmolested,  in  Greater  Armenia,  Artaxes  II, 
the  son  of  Artavasdes,  and  the  ally,  almost 
the  vassal,  of  the  king  of  Parthia. 

We  must  mention  here  that  Phraates,  the 
Parthian  king,  had  been  expelled  from  his 
kingdom  in  33  B.C.  by  a  rival,  Tiridates.  He 
had  contrived  to  re-establish  himself  on  the 
throne  by  30  B.C.,  the  year  of  Octavian's 
visit  to  Syria;  but  he  was  too  weak  to  oppose 
Rome,  and  so  preferred  to  offer  alliance  and 
friendship,  which  were  accepted.  Octavian, 
however,  took  the  precaution  of  leaving 
Tiridates  in  Syria,  to  act  as  a  check  against 
any  possible  treachery  on  the  part  of  Parthia. 

Octavian  still  had  to  deal  with  Cleopatra; 
96 


The  Beginning  of  Empire 

Egypt  was  too  strong  to  be  left  alone,  and 
Cleopatra  was  already  forming  new  schemes 
of  invasion  and  empire  in  Spain  and  Gaul, 
and  even  the  Far  East. 

She  tried  to  negotiate  with  Octavian,  hoping 
to  entice  him  as  she  had  enticed  Antony. 
But  Octavian  was  far  too  wary.  He  put  her 
off  with  vague  promises  and  hopes  until  he 
had  completely  finished  his  work  in  Asia,  and 
then  he  attacked  Egypt  and  took  Pelusium, 
while  his  lieutenant,  Cornelius  Gallus  (the 
poet,  who  afterward  incurred  his  disfavour 
and  was  banished),  led  the  legions  which  had 
belonged  to  Antony  against  Alexandria. 

Antony  attempted  one  final  fight,  but  was 
beaten  back.  Hearing  that  Cleopatra  had 
killed  herself,  he  followed  the  example,  and 
left  the  mastery  of  Alexandria  to  Octavian, 
his  one-time  colleague. 

Octavian  had  hoped  to  capture  Cleopatra 
herself  and  to  lead  her  as  his  captive  in 
triumph  through  the  streets  of  Rome;  but 
she  chose  an  end  befitting  the  last  reigning 
descendant  of  the  kings  of  Egypt.  Her  con- 
queror gave  fitting  burial  to  her  and  her  lover 

97 


Augustus 

in  the  mausoleum  of  the  Ptolemies,  and  sent 
her  sons  to  Rome,  where  they  were  put  under 
the  charge  of  Antony's  Roman  wife,  Octavia. 

The  two  daughters  of  Cleopatra  have  their 
place  in  history:  one  married  GneiusDomitius, 
from  whom  was  descended  Nero,  and  the 
other  was  the  wife  of  Drusus,  and  thus  from 
her  were  descended  the  emperors  Gaius  and 
Claudius. 

Octavian  now  formally  annexed  Egypt  as 
a  Roman  province,  and  had  the  head  of 
Alexander  engraved  on  his  ring  as  the  sign 
of  his  conquest.  He  founded  a  new  city  in 
his  own  honour  near  Canopus. 

The  land  of  the  Pharaohs  and  the  Ptolemies 
was  now  the  treasury  of  the  Emperor  of  Rome 
and  the  granary  of  the  Western  world. 

Octavian  had  become  supreme  over  both 
the  East  and  the  West,  and  his  wars  were 
ended,  in  sign  of  which,  on  the  1st  of  January, 
29  B.C.,  he  closed  the  doors  of  the  temple  of 
Janus,  thus  signifying  that  Rome,  for  the  first 
time  for  two  hundred  years,  had  peace  now 
within  all  her  borders.  The  Triumvirate  was 

at  an  end  and  the  Empire  had  commenced. 

98 


CHAPTER  VII:   The  Prin- 
cipate 

ON    his  return    from    Egypt    Octavian 
was  received    by    Italy    and    Rome 
not  as    the    victor    in    a    civil    war, 
but  as  the  saviour  of  the  Republic  and  of 
his  fellow-citizens,  the  restorer  of  peace  to 
the  world. 

Whether  this  was  due  to  fear  or  to  his 
prestige  and  the  admiration  for  it  matters 
not;  it  was  perfectly  logical.  Antony,  when 
Octavian  met  and  defeated  him  at  Actium, 
was  no  longer  a  Roman  rival  for  Roman 
power:  he  represented  Cleopatra,  and  an 
Eastern,  probably  an  Egyptian,  empire. 

Octavian,  too,  behaved  entirely  as  the 
guardian  of  Roman  power  and  Roman 
interests.  His  first  duty  was  to  complete 
the  rewarding  of  his  victorious  soldiers,  past 
and  present.  He  was  even  more  careful  than 
before  in  his  allotments  of  the  land  they 
wanted.  He  purchased  what  was  required 
from  the  Italian  [municipalities,  instead  of 
annexing  it  as  had  been  done  in  the  early  days 
of  the  Triumvirate.  He  gave  land  not  only 

99 


Augustus 

to  his  own  men,  but  also  to  those  who  had 
surrendered  to  him  from  Antony's  command. 
Last  of  all,  he  set  himself  to  place  these  veterans 
where  they  could  really  be  of  use  in  cultivat- 
ing and  redeveloping  waste  areas  in  Italy  and 
in  strengthening  doubtful  frontiers. 

Octavian  founded — at  least  he  claims  (on 
the  Monument  of  Ancyra)  to  have  founded — 
twenty-four  military  colonies;  and  of  these 
several  were  placed  near  the  Alps  and  the 
Illyrian  borders,  where  .their  presence  was 
of  the  greatest  effect  in  restraining  the  raids 
that  did  so  much  harm  to  the  farmers  of  the 
rich  plains  just  below  the  mountain-lands. 

This  is  one  illustration  among  many  of 
what  was  the  leading  feature  of  Octavian's 
life  policy  from  the  day  of  his  acquiring  the 
sole  power  until  the  day  of  his  death:  even 
the  least  of  his  actions  was  so  planned  and 
carried  out  as  to  have  an  influence  upon  and 
a  relation  to  his  work  as  a  whole.  This  land- 
allotment  was  no  longer  a  mere  reward  or 
bribe;  it  was  now  a  part  of  the  whole  scheme 
for  imperial  consolidation. 

Two  other  actions  at  once  signalized  for 

100 


The  Principate 

the  people  at  large  his  beneficence  and  for- 
giveness on  his  return  from  strife  and  con- 
quest. Carrinas,  whom  he  allowed  to  share 
his  great  three  days'  triumph,  was  a  son  of 
one  of  those  whom  Sulla  had  proscribed; 
and  proscription  under  Sulla  meant  that  the 
descendants  of  the  victims  were  for  ever 
debarred  from  having  any  part  in  official  life. 

Marcus  Licinius  Crassus,  whom  he  chose 
as  his  fellow-consul  for  30  B.C.,  had  been  a 
follower  of  Sextus  Pompeius  and  then  of 
Antony.  Octavian  promoted  him  to  be 
legate  of  Mcesia,  and  now  associated  him  with 
himself  in  the  highest  magistracy  of  the  State. 

Financially,  Octavian  was  in  quite  a  differ- 
ent position  now  that  he  had  conquered  Egypt. 
He  had  all  the  money  he  could  desire,  and  was 
able  to  remit  arrears  of  taxes  and  to  give 
munificent  largess  to  the  populace.  Such  was 
the  general  feeling  of  security  in  business 
circles  (and  these,  after  all,  are,  as  it  were, 
the  barometer  of  the  State)  that  the  rate  of 
interest  in  Rome  fell  from  12  to  4  per  cent. 

But  Octavian  had  now  to  face  the  greatest 
of  all  his  tasks — a  task  before  which  even 


IOI 


Augustus 

his  rise  to  power  and  his  struggles  with  his 
various  rivals  recede  into  the  background:  he 
had  to  legalize  his  position  and  to  reconcile 
it  to  Republican  traditions. 

The  events  of  the  last  hundred  years  had 
made  it  clear,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  old 
mechanism  of  the  State  was  quite  unfitted 
for  the  work  that  fell  to  its  lot;  and,  secondly, 
that  authority,  firm  and  central,  was  a 
necessity. 

Irresponsible  authority  had  shown  what  it 
could  bring  forth,  and  how  even  its  few  good 
actions  could  be  reversed  or  neutralized  at 
the  next  change  of  regime. 

Responsible  authority,  such  as  had  been 
assumed  by  Julius  Ca3sar,  involved  the  per- 
petual danger  of  death. 

Therefore  authority  must  be  made  con- 
stitutional, and — here  was  the  counterpart 
of  the  problem — the  constitution  must  be 
made  authoritative.  Autocracy,  responsible 
or  irresponsible,  was  not  possible. 

It  was  equally  evident  that  no  one  save 
Octavian  had  the  slightest  claim  to  possess 
authority  or  the  slightest  chance  of  estab- 


IO2 


The  Principate 

lishing  it.  We  shall  see  how  he  established 
it  in  the  one  manner  possible  under  the  con- 
ditions with  which  he  had  to  deal.  It  was, 
of  course,  obvious  that  the  Republic,  by  itself, 
without  a  guiding  hand,  would  have  at  once 
meant  complete  anarchy;  and  yet  the  Re- 
publican forms  at  least  had  to  be  maintained. 
In  one  respect  Octavian  had  unique  quali- 
fications for  his  task.  He  had  not  the  dazzling 
personality  of  Julius  Caesar,  nor  could  he 
claim,  as  did  Julius,  to  be  wholly  and  directly 
descended  from  the  very  founders  of  Rome. 
He  could  claim  this  descent  on  his  mother's 
side,  and  this  materially  aided  his  imperial 
prestige;  but  on  the  other  side  he  simply 
came  of  a  good  family  of  Italian  municipal 
aristocracy — the  class  of  which  Cicero  had 
been  the  great  representative  and  chief  up- 
holder. He  was  the  grandson  of  a  burgher 
of  Velitrse  who  had  been  'content  with  muni- 
cipal magistracies';  he  was  an  Italian  rather 
than  a  Roman  noble — and  thereby  he  avoided 
another  dangerous  extreme,  the  narrow-minded 
pride  of  the  Roman  nobility,  who  had  jeered 

at  Cicero  for  a  foreigner  of  Arpinum,  and  who 

103 


Augustus 

had  brought  on  the  Social  War  by  their  refusal 
of  the  franchise  to  Italy. 

Thus  by  his  descent  Octavian  appealed 
to  all  parties  of  Rome,  Italy,  and  the 
Empire. 

His  ideals,  too,  were  equally  apt  in  their 
appeal.  Julius  Caesar  had  had  a  dream  of  a 
union  of  all  Rome  and  Italy,  allies,  provinces, 
and  dependencies  united  in  one  vast  State, 
governed  by  the  same  laws,  and  directly  under 
the  same  central  authority.  Octavian,  on 
the  other  hand,  insisted  on  maintaining  the 
distinctions  between  Rome,  Italy,  and  the 
allied  dependencies.  Julius  had  planned  the 
municipalization  of  Italy,  possibly  as  a  con- 
venient method  of  administration;  Octavian 
carried  this  out  by  a  species  of  vast  Local 
Government  Act,  and  thereby  encouraged  a 
spontaneous  and  independent  growth  of  spirit 
and  feeling  throughout  the  Italian  peninsula. 
The  excellence  of  this  policy  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  it  spread  by  degrees  through  the 
provinces  and  even  into  Spain;  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  Spain  was  the  one 

particular    part    of    the   Empire    which  be- 

104 


The  Principate 

came,  before  any  other,  'more  Roman 
than  Rome/ 

In  personal  character  Octavian  was  not 
unlike  Louis  XI  of  France,  homely  in  many 
ways,  with  a  vein  (but  a  far  slighter  vein)  of 
superstition;  cautious,  yet  shrewd  and  far- 
seeing;  using  all  classes  and  valuing  them  at 
their  exact  worth  in  themselves  and  for  the 
State.  Also,  like  Louis  XI,  he  knew  how  to 
choose  men  and  how  to  keep  their  affection 
and  fidelity.  Lastly,  he  had  a  complete  and 
unchanging  indifference  to  all  the  external 
signs  of  power. 

Octavian  commenced  his  *  restoration '  with 
the  purification  of  the  Senate.  That  body,  as 
was  to  be  expected  after  so  many  years  of 
trouble  and  anarchy,  was  in  sore  need  of 
purging  and  reorganization.  He  associated 
Agrippa  with  himself  for  this  work;  and, 
following  his  usual  practice,  he  did  not 
actually  constitute  himself  and  Agrippa 
censors:  he  took  the  'power  of  censorship* 
for  a  period  of  five  years,  thus  having  the 
authority  to  do  whatever  he  chose,  without 
needing  to  monopolize  for  himself  and  his 

105 


Augustus 

colleague  the  office  of  censorship,  which  was 
in  its  way  a  definite  magistracy. 

There  had  always  been  a  definite  quali- 
fication— the  possession  of  a  certain  sum 
of  money — required  for  senatorial  rank. 
Octavian  raised  this  qualification,  and  there- 
by excluded  from  the  Senate  those  who 
had  not  an  adequate  fortune.  He  wished 
to  have  men  who  had  a  distinct  stake  in 
the  country. 

This  principle  was  made  even  more  definite 
under  the  later  emperors,  who  insisted  that 
their  senators  should  not  only  possess  a 
certain  fortune,  but  should  be  owners  of  a 
certain  amount  of  land  in  Italy  itself. 

Octavian  insisted  on  this  monetary  quali- 
fication; but  where  he  found  men  whom  he 
wished,  for  one  reason  or  another,  to  pro 
mote  he  supplied  the  funds  or  grants  required 
to  make  up  their  qualification,  thereby  bind- 
ing them  closely  to  himself  and  his  interests. 

To  occupy  a  seat  in  the  Senate  it  was  not 
merely  necessary  to  be  of  the  proper  rank — 
to  be  a  noble;  a  candidate  must  also  have 

held  at  least  the  office  of  quaestor,  the  lowest 

1 06 


The  Principate 


senatorial  magistracy.  As  Octavian,  by  his 
nominations  and  recommendations,  had,  in 
fact  if  not  in  name,  the  entire  control  of  all 
elections  to  all  the  magistracies,  he  of  course 
controlled  the  elections  to  the  qusestorship. 
But  he  took  a  further  step.  He  ensured 
control  not  only  of  the  actual  seats  in  the 
Senate  House,  but  also  of  admission  to  the 
senatorial  order  or  class. 

In  the  old  days  all  nobles,  patricians  or 
wealthy  and  prominent  plebeians,  were,  by 
virtue  of  their  social  position,  eligible  for  the 
rank  and  for  the  seats;  or,  rather,  they  were 
senators  by  right  of  birth,  and  the  seats 
in  the  Senate  House  and  the  senatorial 
magistracies  were  filled  from  their  numbers: 
nobility  of  birth  implied  senatorial  rank. 

Under  Octavian  all  this  was  changed. 
He  began  not  only  to  fill  the  seats  in  the 
Senate,  but  also  the  senatorial  class,  with  his 
nominees.  He  left  the  old  nobility  to  enjoy 
their  former  privileges  and  prestige,  but  he 
added  to  their  numbers.  The  old  nobles  had 
become  officials;  the  new  officials  became 

nobles. 

107 


Augustus 

In  order  to  control  admission  to  the  sena- 
torial class,  Octavian  acquired  the  right  of 
bestowing  the  laticlavium,  or  broad  purple 
band,  for  the  toga.  Hitherto  this  had  been  a 
sign  of  noble  birth  and  had  meant  senatorial 
rank;  now  it  was  a  sign  of  senatorship  and 
meant  nobility,  though  it  did  not  carry  with 
it  the  right  to  a  seat  in  the  Senate:  that  had 
to  be  gained  by  holding  some  definite  office, 
at  lowest  the  qusestorship,  as  we  have  said 
above. 

Octavian  had  his  own  special  reason  for 
raising  the  monetary  qualification  for  the 
senatorial  rank,  or  'class/  which  is  really  by 
far  the  better  word.  That  class  must  be  ex- 
clusive and  it  must  be  wealthy;  but  the  real 
reason  for  its  exclusiveness  and  its  wealth 
was  that  senators  should  have  greater  social 
distinction  than  any  others  in  the  State. 
They  could  no  longer  be  powerful:  the  Senate, 
as  a  body,  was  practically  superseded,  as  were 
the  magistrates  as  individuals;  the  ancient 
control  of  the  army  and  the  provinces  and  of 
the  commonwealth  in  general  was  no  longer 

theirs.     Only  one  resource  was  left  to  them, 

108 


The  Principate 

that  of  a  dignified  and  noble  display,  an 
aristocratic  social  splendour.  And  it  was  this 
that  Octavian  encouraged  in  his  reorganiza- 
tion of  senatorial  order. 

Octavian  devoted  much  attention  to  the 
material  and  spiritual  sides  of  Roman  life. 
He  restored  the  old  temples  and  built  others, 
and  he  prohibited  foreign  rites  and  cults.  It 
was  his  object  to  restore  the  ancient  traditions 
of  Rome  and  the  memory  of  the  favour  she 
had  always  enjoyed  from  heaven — her  own 
heaven  peopled  by  her  own  gods;  and  he 
wished  it  to  be  felt  that  foreign  gods  and 
their  cults  were  of  and  for  the  foreign  nations 
who  were  now  the  subjects  of  Rome.  More- 
over, it  was  not  for  Romans  to  ape  the 
manners  or  fantasies  of  inferior  aliens. 

Among  other  ceremonies,  Octavian  con- 
ducted one  which  had  been  neglected  for  the 
past  forty  years,  namely,  a  solemn  purification 
of  the  people  in  the  Campus  Martius.  This 
again  was  a  sign,  first,  that  Rome  was  at  peace, 
freed  from  wars  foreign  and  civil;  secondly, 
that  she  was  returning  to  her  ancient  custom 
and  ritual. 

109 


Augustus 

In  £8  B.C.  Octavian,  now  consul  for  the 
sixth  time,  issued  an  edict  cancelling  the 
irregular  enactments  of  the  Triumvirate;  he 
also  announced  that  in  the  following  year  he 
would  lay  down  the  especial  and  extraordi- 
nary authority  that  he  held  and  restore  the 
commonwealth  to  the  Senate  and  people.  He 
fulfilled  his  promise  on  the  1st  of  January, 
27  B.C.,  when  consul  for  the  seventh  time. 

Naturally,  and  as  he  had  calculated,  he 
regained  the  essentials  of  the  power  he  had 
resigned.  He  was  given,  first,  the  imperium 
for  ten  years  and  the  exclusive  control  of 
certain  provinces;  secondly,  the  position  of 
commander-in-chief  of  all  the  forces  of  the 
Empire,  and,  with  this,  the  sole  right  of 
levying  and  discharging  troops  and  of  declar- 
ing war  and  peace  and  of  making  treaties. 
He  thus  had  supreme  control  outside  Rome. 
He  held  this  power  as  consul  and  with  con- 
sular authority,  and  this  gave  him  the  chief 
magistracy  in  Rome,  as  well  as  precedence 
over  all  magistrates  outside  the  city.  Thirdly, 
he  was  given  the  title  of  Augustus,  Se/Saoros, 
i.  e.  sacrosanct,  which  implied  that  in  him 


no 


Photo  Bruchmann 
AUGUSTUS   WEARING   THE   CITIZEN'S   CROWN  OP   OAK-LEAVES 


The  Principate 

was  vested  the  [sacrosanct  power  of  Rome 
itself. 

By  the  people  and  the  provinces  Octavian, 
whom  we  must  now  call  Augustus,  but  whom 
they  called  Caesar,1  was  recognized  as  the 
guardian  of  the  Roman  Empire  and  the 
governor  of  the  whole  world.  Rome  and 
the  higher  classes  were  content  with  the 
polite  fiction  that  he  was  the  Princess  Civitatis, 
or  *  First  Citizen  of  the  State,'  primus  inter 
pares,  or  'first  among  his  peers.' 

The  old  magisterial  functions  were  in  active 
use.  Augustus  was  neither  king  nor  dic- 
tator, nor  did  he  hold  any  office  of  which 
Rome  could  say,  'This  is  contrary  to  the 
usage  of  our  forefathers.'  He  simply  had, 
in  principle,  a  position  similar  to  that  of 
Pompeius  in  67  B.C.,  or  Julius  in  57  B.C.  It 
was  quite  according  to  precedent  that  a  consul 
should  have  both  legions  and  provinces  under 
his  control.  Even  Cicero,  the  great  authority 
on  forms  and  precedents,  had  advocated  such 

1  'Caesar,'  during  the  history  of  the  Empire,  always  is  used  of 
the  reigning  emperor,  just  as  the  kings  of  Egypt  were  all  'Pharaoh' 
during  their  lives.  The  late  emperor  is  always  the  'divine  Augus- 
tus,' or  whatever  else  his  name  may  be.  The  use  of  'Caesar  '  as  an 
official  and  legalized  title  dates,  however,  from  Vespasian. 


Ill 


Augustus 

a  Principatus.  Augustus  simply  held  the 
primacy  in  a  free  commonwealth. 

Of  course,  in  reality  he  was  the  ruler  of 
the  Empire.  He  had  the  prestige  of  having 
crushed  Antony,  and  of  being  the  heir  of 
Julius;  he  was  the  generalissimo  of  the  whole 
army  and  the  direct  ruler  of  Hither  Spain, 
Gaul,  Syria,  and  Egypt;  he  was  consul  and 
therefore  head  of  the  executive;  incidentally 
he  held  the  tribunicia  potestas.  What  rival 
could  he  have  ? 

On  June  27,  23  B.C.,  Augustus  took  the 
decisive  step  that  was  to  crystallize  the  con- 
stitution as  he  had  planned  it:  he  resigned 
the  consulship  that  he  had  held  since  31  B.C. 
He  retained  his  imperium9  but  only  as  pro- 
consul— i.e.  abroad,  and  not  within  Rome. 
Proconsul  ad  portam  urbis  deponit  imperium:1 
this  deprived  him  of  his  right  of  precedence 
over  all  other  magistrates  and  of  his  power 
to  convene  the  Senate  and  the  assembly  of 
the  people. 

This  step  caused  general  anxiety.  Augustus 
was  offered  one  honour  after  another — the 

1  '  The  proconsul  must  lay  down  his  command  at  the  gate  of 
Rome.' 


112 


The  Principate 

dictatorship,  the  consulship  for  life,  the 
'care  of  laws  and  morals'  (the  word  mores  in- 
cludes morality  and  customs  and  the  ordering 
of  life  in  general);  but  he  refused  all  these 
as  being  'unconstitutional.'  He  reassured 
Rome,  and  also  secured  what  he  really  needed, 
by  three  enactments:  first,  he  was  to  retain 
his  imperium  and  to  use  it  in  Rome; 
secondly,  his  imperium  was  to  be  consular, 
thus  giving  him  precedence  of  all  others  at 
home  or  abroad;  thirdly,  he  was  to  have 
the  same  rights  as  the  consuls  for  convening 
the  Senate,  introducing  business,  nominating 
candidates  for  election,  and  issuing  edicts. 

Outwardly,  he  was  placed  on  a  level  with 
the  consuls;  he  had  a  seat  between  them  in 
the  Senate,  and  he  was  allowed  twelve  lictors. 

This  arrangement  may  be  said  to  have 
regularized  the  Principate  for  the  next 
three  hundred  years.  But  one  point  was 
incomplete.  It  was  not  right  that  a  pro- 
consul, who  held  command  over  camps  and 
in  provinces,  should  rule  in  Rome  over  the 
heads  of  the  elected  magistrates:  the  pro- 
consular authority  was  essentially  military 

"3 


Augustus 

and  provincial.  Augustus  overcame  this 
difficulty  by  means  of  the  tribunicia  potestas, 
which  he  now  used  in  the  one  manner  most 
exactly  suited  to  his  own  needs  and  those  of 
the  constitution. 

He  did  not  pose  as  perpetual  tribune;  he, 
as  a  patrician,  and  with  an  imperium,  was 
not  eligible;  he  simply  adopted  the  tribunes' 
powers,  and  thus  acquired  the  ideal  title  for 
the  expression  of  his  position.  It  fell  in  with 
urban  necessities  and  with  democratic  tradi- 
tion; it  gave  him  the  right  (thus  legalizing 
what  he  had  in  fact)  to  convene  the  Senate 
or  the  assembly,  to  propose  laws,  to  veto  the 
proposals  of  other  magistrates.  He  used  this 
right  constantly,  as  a  means  of  carrying  out 
for  Rome  and  Italy  social  reforms  demanded 
by  the  Senate.  It  also  gave  him  the  right  to 
receive  appeals,  and,  more  than  all,  the  in- 
violability, or  majestas,  which  was  so  power- 
ful an  instrument  later  on  against  treason 
or  the  suspicion  of  it.  We  have  to-day  the 
phrase  lese-majeste  to  express  insult  or  treason 
to  the  person  of  the  sovereign. 

This    inviolability    had    its    own     special 
114 


The  Principate 

meaning,  in  that  it  invested  Augustus,  or 
whoever  else  held  the  tribunician  power, 
with  the  inviolability  of  the  Sovereign  People. 
Thus  not  only  did  it  in  a  sense  invest  him  with 
a  sacrosanct  position  of  his  own:  it  also 
represented  him  as  the  personification  of  the 
people.  He  could  not  be  called  autocrat! 

Incidentally  it  signified  that  he  was  the 
especial  protector  and  patron  of  the  populace. 
Thus  he  bound  to  his  person  all  that  section 
of  the  community. 

We  have  so  far  attempted  to  outline  the 
methods  by  which  Augustus  converted  the 
State  machinery  to  his  own  use  and  the  needs 
of  the  Empire.  Without  superseding  any 
single  factor  in  the  State,  he,  so  to  speak, 
amalgamated  himself  with  every  factor  and 
made  himself  superior  to  and  the  controller 
of  every  factor.  The  Republic  could  not  exist 
without  an  imperator;  yet  it  did  not  cease,  in 
law  and  in  name,  to  be  the  Republic.  It  is 
curious  but  true  that  these  arrangements 
did  not  provide  for  any  sort  of  hereditary  or 
other  transmission.  All  the  powers  given  to 
Augustus  had  to  be  voted  over  again  to  each 

"5 


Augustus 

of  his  successors.  The  Principate  died  with 
the  death  of  each  princeps.  The  various 
powers  were  always  voted,  with  occasional 
slight  modifications.  The  choice  of  the  can- 
didate varied:  at  first  it  was  a  question  of 
more  or  less  direct  descent,  then  of  kinship 
or  adoption,  then  of  military  ability  or 
popularity.  But  the  candidate  was  always 
found,  and,  when  found,  was  always  given  his 
special  powers. 

Empire,  at  first  a  craving,  became  with 
Rome  a  habit. 

We  will  now  attempt  to  outline  the  actual 
work,  apart  from  its  constitutional  aspect, 
that  Augustus  did,  and  to  show  what  was 
and  what  became  the  procedure  of  govern- 
ment under  his  auspices.  And  the  last  word 
perhaps  expresses  the  whole  situation:  Rome 
ruled  herself  and  the  world  auspice  Augusto. 


116 


CHAPTER  VIII:  Foreign  and 
Military  Policy  of  Augustus 

WE  will  deal  first  with  what  we 
may  call  the  'Imperial'  work  of 
Augustus — that  is,  his  work  on 
the  frontiers,  in  the  provinces,  and  in  con- 
nexion with  the  army. 

Augustus,  as  the  supreme  arbiter  of  all 
foreign  policy,  and,  with  this,  the  absolute 
master  of  the  legions,  was  in  a  position  to 
attempt  what  the  Republic  never  could  have 
faced,  namely,  the  problem  of  establishing 
definite  frontiers  for  the  Empire,  a  definite 
frontier  policy,  and  a  definite  scheme  of 
frontier  defence. 

The  western  frontier  of  the  Empire  was  the 
Atlantic.  Augustus  formulated  no  schemes 
for  visiting  or  Romanizing  Britain:  that  he 
left  to  his  successors. 

The  southern  frontier  extended  from  the 
eastern  borders  of  Egypt  to  the  eastern 
borders  of  Mauretania.  Mauretania  acknowl- 
edged the  sovereignty  of  Rome,  and  this 
carried  Roman  influence  practically  to  the 

Atlantic  seaboard.     The  only  trouble  on  this 

117 


Augustus 

frontier  was  that  caused  by  occasional  maraud- 
ing tribes.  Augustus  systematized  the  defence 
of  this  frontier  as  far  as  he  could,  but  left  it 
to  his  successors  to  develop  and  perfect  the 
system. 

The  northern  and  north-eastern  frontiers 
presented  far  greater  difficulties. 

The  theory  of  the  northern  (and  north- 
eastern) frontier  had  been  the  line  of  the 
Danube  and  the  line  of  the  Rhine.  Gallia 
Belgica  and  Rsetia — this  latter  became  a 
province  in  15  B.C. — ensured  the  Rhine. 
Noricum  (15  B.C.),  Pannonia  (A.D.  10),  and 
Mcesia  (A.D.  6)  ensured  the  Danube.  All 
these  were  Imperial  provinces — i.e.  directly 
administered  by  Caesar. 

But  the  question  arose  whether  the  Elbe 
would  not  be  the  proper  north-eastern  frontier. 
It  would  certainly  provide  a  far  better  safe- 
guard against  German  invasions  of  Italy  from 
the  north.  This  had  been  one  of  Julius's 
ideals,  and  they  were  generally  worth  follow- 
ing, from  a  practical  point  of  view.  Augustus 
therefore  pursued  the  extension  eastward 

from  the  Rhine  border. 

118 


Foreign  and  Military  Policy 

For  a  time  he  seemed  likely  to  succeed. 
Drusus  and  Tiberius  gained  ground  for  him 
steadily  from  13  B.C.  onward;  in  9  B.C.  Drusus 
had  reached  the  Elbe,  and  three  years  later 
Tiberius  took  up  the  work  with,  apparently, 
excellent  results.  Roman  troops  were  sta- 
tioned along  the  new  frontier;  roads  were 
being  made,  bridges  built,  canals  cut;  Roman 
administration  and  taxation,  and  even  civiliza- 
tion, were  making  headway  among  the  savage 
Germans.  Most  significant  of  all,  the  worship 
of  Rome  and  Augustus  was  being  taken  up, 
and  an  altar  stood  in  the  land  of  the  Ubii 
for  all  men  to  see  that  the  northern  bar- 
barians were  adopting  the  cult  of  Caesar. 

Then  occurred  in  A.D.  9  the  disaster  of 
Varus,  who  was  cut  to  pieces  with  his  three 
legions  in  the  Hercynian  Forest.  Those  who 
wish  to  read  one  of  the  most  perfectly  written 
and  pathetic  pages  in  literature  have  but  to 
turn  to  the  passage  in  which  Tacitus  describes 
the  tragedy  as  only  he  could  do  it. 

The  incident  deserves  more  than  a  passing 
word,  for  it  marks  the  permanent  abandon- 
ment on  the  part  of  Rome  of  expansion 

119 


Augustus 

east  of  the  Rhine.  Augustus  refused  to 
continue  his  attempts:  he  withdrew  to  the 
Rhine,  and  in  his  will  he  enjoined  upon  his 
successors  that  the  Rhine  was  to  be  their 
frontier. 

The  importance  of  the  Rhine  and  Danube 
was  such  that  Augustus  put  both  rivers 
under  special  government.  The  Rhine  and 
the  'three  Gauls/  Aquitania,  Lugdunensis, 
and  Belgica,  were  under  one  man,  and  the 
three  Danube  provinces  under  another. 
Strong  centralized  authority  was  thus  secured 
for  these  dangerous  borders.  There  was  no 
possibility  of  establishing  anything  in  the 
nature  of  what  we  call  a  'buffer-State* 
between  Rome  and  the  barbarian;  in  con- 
sequence the  chain  of  provinces  had  to  be 
under  special  supervision  and  rule. 

The  eastern  frontier  was  also  a  source  of 
anxiety.  The  great  danger  here  was  the 
Parthian  ruler,  the  'King  of  Kings,'  as  he 
styled  himself.  Ever  since  Parthia  had  risen 
to  her  great  strength  there  had  been  the 
danger  that  she  might,  by  one  sweeping 
raid,  or  else  on  the  occasion  of  some  display 


I2O 


Foreign  and  Military  Policy 

of  weakness  on  the  part  of  Rome,  induce  the 
Asian  states  to  throw  off  their  allegiance  to 
the  Western  Power  and  bow  down  to  the 
'King  of  Kings.' 

We  have  seen  something  of  the  changes 
and  chances  of  Parthia.  It  was  in  62  B.C. 
that  Rome,  in  her  undertaking  to  annex 
Syria,  had  first  been  brought  face  to  face  with 
the  Parthians.  She  found  out  in  53  B.C. 
how  greatly  they  were  to  be  feared. 

In  40  B.C.  Parthia  invaded  Asia  Minor 
and  practically  regained  all  that  had  been 
Rome's  undisputed  property.  Ventidius 
Bassus  won  back  the  last  lands  two  years 
later.  In  36  B.C.  Antony  attempted  his 
counter-invasion  of  Parthia,  but  without 
success. 

Thanks  to  internal  dissensions,  Phraates  was 
willing,  as  we  have  seen,  to  make  alliance 
and  friendship  with  Augustus  in  30  B.C.,  just 
at  the  moment  when  Augustus  needed  such  a 
compromise. 

Parthia  was  still  weak  when  Augustus 
returned  thither  in  20  B.C.,  and  Phraates 
readily  consented  to  give  back  the  standards 


121 


Augustus 

lost  at  Carrhse,  and  asked  that  his  alliance 
and  friendship  with  Rome  might  continue. 

But,  naturally,  Augustus,  who  never  liked 
to  leave  problems  half  solved,  was  anxious 
for  some  settlement  which  should  lie  on  a 
more  solid  basis  than  the  caprice  or  changing 
fortunes  of  an  Eastern  king.  An  invasion 
of  Parthia  would  be  far  too  costly  and 
dangerous. 

There  was  no  clear  frontier  line  along  the 
whole  border.  Syria  was  safely  bounded  by 
the  desert  and  the  Euphrates  on  the  east, 
but  the  states  on  the  north-east  between 
the  Euphrates  and  the  Roman  provinces  of 
Bithynia,  Galatia,  and  Cilicia  were  not  to  be 
depended  upon.  Moreover,  Bithynia  was  a 
senatorial  province.  All  three  of  these  states, 
Pontus,  Cappadocia,  and  Commagene,  were 
under  native  rule,  and  their  allegiance  was 
as  doubtful  as  that  of  Parthia  herself.  An- 
nexation was  necessary,  but  this  Augustus 
had  to  leave  to  his  successors. 

The  one  debatable  land  was  Armenia, 
and  Augustus  decided  to  bring  this  country, 
so  far  as  he  might,  within  the  sphere  of 


122 


Foreign  and  Military  Policy 

Roman  influence.  He  twice  sent  Tiberius, 
and  once  Gaius  (4  B.C.),  the  son  of  Agrippa, 
on  special  missions  for  the  encouragement  of 
friendly  relations.  Armenia  was  to  Rome  and 
Parthia  exactly  what  Afghanistan  is  to-day 
to  the  Indian  Empire  and  Russia. 

Furthermore,  to  ensure  proper  control  in 
Asia,  Augustus  left  Agrippa  for  ten  years 
(from  23  to  13  B.C.)  as  special  commissioner 
in  the  East. 

We  must  now  glance  at  the  army,  as  the 
military  forces  of  the  Empire  were,  after  the 
*  accession'  of  Augustus,  indissolubly  bound 
up  with  the  frontier  policy. 

During  the  later  days  of  the  Republic  the 
army  had  become  a  serious  menace  to  the 
home  Government  and  an  undue  burden  on 
the  provinces. 

In  theory  it  was  still  a  militia,  liable  to  be 
called  out  year  by  year  for  the  defence  of  the 
State;  but  in  practice  it  was  simply  a  stand- 
ing army.  The  old  custom  of  returning  home 
after  the  term  of  service  was  ended  became 
obsolete  during  the  last  century  of  the 

Republic. 

123 


Augustus 

We  have  seen  how  Marius  took  the  first 
real  steps  to  separate  the  military  from  the 
civil  element.  Soldiering  in  his  day  became 
a  profession  rather  than  a  duty.  But  the 
soldier  had  as  yet  no  recognized  claim  to  re- 
ward or  pension  on  discharge:  he  could  and 
did  look  to  his  leader  for  grants  of  money 
or  land,  wrung  from  that  leader's  victims, 
and  in  return  he  gave  his  vote — or,  if  wanted, 
his  sword — for  the  measures  which  his  leader 
wished  to  pass. 

During  the  period  of  the  *  Ad  venturers,' 
as  we  have  called  them,  Rome  saw,  not  one, 
but  several  armies,  under  independent  leaders, 
who  as  often  as  not  were  hostile  to  one  another. 
In  the  intervals  between  periods  of  active 
service  these  armies  lived,  free  of  cost,  upon 
the  provincials. 

During  the  civil  war  there  were  perhaps  as 
many  as  fifty  legions  under  arms.  Augustus 
reduced  these  by  half.  He  gave  money 
grants  or  land  to  discharged  soldiers,  many  of 
whom,  as  we  have  said  in  the  chapter  previous 
to  this,  he  settled  in  the  military  'colonies' 

wherewith    he    sought    to    repopulate    waste 

124 


Foreign  and  Military  Policy 

districts  of  Italy  (Veii  and  Perusia  are  two 
instances  of  towns  that  regained  their  ancient 
importance  in  this  way),  or  to  strengthen 
doubtful  borderlands — for  example,  in  what 
had  formerly  been  Cisalpine  Gaul. 

He  retained  twenty  -five  legions  for  service 
on  the  frontiers.  He  stationed  no  less  than 
twelve  on  the  Rhine  and  Danube  frontier; 
four  were  for  Eygpt  and  Africa,  four  for 
Syria,  three  for  Spain,  and  two  for  Dalmatia. 
A  permanent  force  for  the  defence  of  the 
Empire  was  thus  constituted.  The  legion 
was  by  now  a  distinct  standing  corps,  with  its 
own  special  number  and  name,  and  under  the 
command  of  its  own  legate  appointed  by  the 
Emperor.  Its  ranks  and  grades  were  clearly 
defined.  No  longer  did  nobles  or  knights  enter 
the  ranks  as  in  the  old  days:  the  'privates,' 
for  the  most  part,  remained  separate  from 
the  'commissioned'  officers,  and  promotion 
from^the  ranks  was  exceptional. 

The  men  all  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to 
Caesar,  were  paid  by  Caesar  and  discharged  by 
Caesar;  and  their  pay  was  put  on  a  regular 
basis,  being  provided  by  certain  taxes  which 

125 


Augustus 

went  to  fill  the  military  chest  instituted  by 
Augustus  in  A.D.  6. 

The  term  of  service  was  sixteen  years 
'with  the  colours,'1  and  then  four  years  in 
the  reserve.  On  being  discharged  the  soldier 
was  granted  a  definite  sum  of  money.  Enlist- 
ment by  voluntary  means  was  found  to  suffice 
except  in  rare  cases  (as,  for  example,  after  the 
defeat  of  Varus),  when  the  old  system  of  forced 
levy  had  to  be  resumed.  However,  the  liability 
on  all  Romans  to  serve  was  not  abolished,  nor 
was  any  one  save  a  free  Roman  citizen  allowed 
to  serve  in  the  legion. 

Augustus  drew  largely  on  the  various  allies 
and  provinces  for  supplementary  military 
aid.  Contingents  from  various  tribes  acted  as 
auxiliaries,  and  kept  their  tribal  dress  and 
arms,  and  even  their  special  methods  of  fight- 
ing. After  their  term  of  service  (in  their  case 
twenty-five  years)  these  auxiliaries  received 
the  full  Roman  franchise  for  themselves  and 
their  descendants. 

The  employment  of  the  supplementary 
forces  served  a  twofold  purpose.  In  the  first 

1  For  the  Romans  the  'colours'  were  'eagles'. 
126 


Foreign  and  Military  Policy 

place,  the  various  warlike  tribes  in  different 
provinces  found  an  outlet  for  their  pro- 
clivities, and  this  was  most  necessary,  as 
the  Roman  Empire  when  peace  prevailed 
became  a  trifle  dull  for  certain  of  its  ad- 
herents. 

Secondly,  the  retiring  auxiliaries,  what  with 
their  long  association  with  the  Roman  legion- 
aries and  the  full  franchise  given  with  their 
discharge,  were  in  many  cases  thoroughly 
'Romanized.'  Each  generation  of  auxiliaries 
ensured  a  second  generation  of  legionaries. 

Naturally,  as  the  army  became  more  and 
more  concentrated  on  the  frontiers,  and  re- 
cruited from  the  provinces,  Italy  and  the 
peaceful  senatorial  provinces  lost  touch  with 
it,  and  memory  of  it.  It  became,  indeed,  more 
and  more  rare  for  the  Italians  to  see  or  even 
to  furnish  soldiers  for  the  defence  of  the 
Empire. 

We  now  come  to  the  provinces.  As 
Augustus  established  and  consolidated  the 
constitution,  and  with  it  his  own  position, 
he  gradually  created  a  department  of  his 

own,   entirely   under  his   personal   direction 

127 


Augustus 

and  apart  from  all  senatorial  control.  We 
shall  see,  a  little  farther  on,  how  he  annexed 
various  portions  of  the  home  executive.  But, 
so  far  as  concerned  the  provinces,  he  had  by 
far  the  larger  share  of  the  administration 
in  his  hands,  and  this  share  was  extended 
under  his  successors.  By  the  end  of  the 
first  century  A.D.  no  less  than  three-fourths 
of  the  provinces  were  directly  under  the 
Emperor,  and  were  known  as  the  'provinces 
of  Csesar/ 

This  Imperial  Department,  both  for  home 
and  for  foreign  affairs,  was  an  absolute 
necessity;  the  old  Republican  machinery 
was  quite  inadequate  for  anything  like 
organized  or  efficient  government,  inside  or 
outside  Rome.  We  have  only  to  read  a  few 
pages  of  Cicero  for  confirmation  of  this. 
It  was  obviously  necessary  to  give  certain 
definite  executive  powers  to  the  Emperor. 
This  was  rendered  more  easy  and  natural  by 
reason  of  the  Imperial  prestige;  the  Senate 
was  only  too  ready  to  vote  any  extension 
of  the  Imperial  Department  that  Caesar  might 

suggest. 

'128 


AUGUSTUS  ADDRESSING  HIS  TROOPS 


Foreign  and  Military  Policy 

Of  course  Augustus,  as  having  the  majus 
imperium,  or  superior  command,  took  prece- 
dence both  at  home  and  abroad,  as  we  have 
shown,  over  all  other  magistrates;  and  he 
thus  exercised  a  good  deal  of  indirect  control 
even  over  departments  and  provinces  that 
were  under  the  charge  of  his  'colleagues.'  In 
some  cases  he  even  gave  direct  instructions  to 
proconsuls;  at  any  rate,  the  prsetors  at  home 
and  the  proconsuls  abroad,  though  legally 
the  equals  of  Augustus,  lost  their  original 
independence.  Hints  or  counsels  from  the 
master  of  the  legions  were  usually  taken  as 
commands:  at  the  very  least  they  carried 
some  weight. 

The  organization  of  the  provincial  system 
occupied  Augustus  fully  from  27  to  19  B.C. 
He  added  thirteen  provinces  (eight  of  which 
he  'created')  to  the  Empire. 

In  the  West,  as  we  have  said,  he  formed 
three  'Gauls' — Aquitania,  Lugdunensis,  and 
Belgica.  In  Spain  he  pacified  the  warlike 
north-west  highlands,  and  he  established 
Roman  influence  firmly  up  to  the  Atlantic 

seaboard    by    constituting    the    province    of 

129 


Augustus 

Lusitania.  In  the  East  he  formed  in  25 
B.C.  the  two  provinces  of  Galatia  and 
Pamphylia,  after  the  death  of  King  Amyntas, 
under  whose  rule  they  had  been. 

The  African  coast  was  all  'province*  as  far 
as  Mauretania.  Egypt  was  the  especial  prov- 
ince of  Augustus  himself,  under  his  exclusive 
control,  and  almost  his  private  property. 

Egypt  deserves  special  mention.  It  pro- 
vided Augustus  and  his  successors  with 
money.  It  was  indispensable  to  the  emperors 
for  that  reason.  Not  only  were  there  vast 
stores  of  treasure  in  the  country,  but  the 
land  itself,  as  it  is  now,  was  a  veritable 
treasure-house,  rich  in  crops,  irrigated  by 
the  Nile,  cultivated  by  a  peasantry  who  were 
accustomed  to  pay  taxes  without  a  murmur. 
Egypt  was  the  'key  to  kingship.' 

Augustus  did  not  treat  Egypt  as  he  did  the 
other  provinces:  he  left  the  administration 
and  general  arrangements  of  the  country  very 
much  as  he  found  them,  and  put  a  responsible 
prefect  at  the  head  of  all  affairs.  His  chief 
concern  was  the  irrigation.  Canals  and  irriga- 
tion works  had  been  neglected  during  the  past 

130 


Foreign  and  Military  Policy 

few  years.  He  set  his  legionaries  actually  to 
the  work  of  cleaning  out  and  repairing  the 
canals,  and  he  thereby  made  it  possible 
for  a  lesser  Nile-flood  than  before  to  give 
sufficient  irrigation  to  the  whole  land.  Egypt 
was  his  milch-cow,  and  he  took  care  that  she 
should  be  properly  tended  and  fed. 

Egypt  was  the  only  country  apparently  that 
tempted  Augustus  to  go  beyond  his  usual 
caution  in  development  policy.  His  prefect 
yElius  Gallus  attempted  a  campaign  on  the 
Red  Sea  coast,  which  failed  disastrously, 
and  other  expeditions  were  tried,  with  equal 
lack  of  success,  against  Nubia  and  Ethiopia. 
True,  Gallus  seems  to  have  been  singularly 
incapable;  but  we  can  hardly  suppose  that 
he  acted  entirely  on  his  own  initiative. 
Augustus  must  have  had  ideas  of  trade 
campaigns.  Perhaps  the  glamour  of  Africa 
enticed  him,  as  it  has  others:  more  prob- 
ably he  remembered  how  the  great  monarchs 
of  Egypt,  Pepi,  Usertsen  (or  Sesostris),  Men- 
tuhotep,  Rameses  II,  had  all  exploited  Nubia 
and  Ethiopia  and  Somaliland  (Punt)  with 
great  commercial  success.  But  he  realized 


Augustus 

before  it  was  too  late  that  he  must  establish 
his  frontier  at  Assouan  (Syene)  and  not  tempt 
the  fortunes  and  dangers  of  the  Soudan. 

The  provinces,  under  the  Republic,  had  been 
so  many  distinct  and  separate  principalities, 
so  to  speak,  each  under  its  own  Roman 
governor.  Under  Augustus  they  were  all, 
directly  and  indirectly,  under  his  own  im- 
perium.  The  provinces  under  his  direct 
control  were  Egypt,  Gaul,  Syria,  Hither 
Spain  in  27  B.C.,  Lusitania,  Cilicia,  Galatia, 
Pamphylia  in  19  B.C.,  and  Mcesia,  Pannonia, 
Noricum,  and  Rsetia  in  16  B.C.  These,  the 
most  warlike,  populous,  and  rich  in  the  whole 
Empire,  really  formed  one  big  province,  ad- 
ministered by  his  own  men  and  under  his 
absolute  rule.  The  most  important  among 
them  were  controlled  by  his  legates,  and  the 
others  by  procuratores,  or  agents,  usually 
men  of  Equestrian  rank.  Now  and  again 
one  of  these  procurators  was  given  charge  of 
the  finances  in  a  legate's  province.  Legates 
were  men  of  senatorial  rank,  but  the  pro- 
curators, who  were  directly  responsible  to  the 

Emperor,  often  acted  as  a  check  upon  them. 

132 


Foreign  and  Military  Policy 

Now  and  again,  as  in  the  case  of  Egypt, 
a  prefect  was  appointed  for  a  province. 

A  further  check  on  the  legate  was  the  fact 
that  the  soldiers  under  him  were  Caesar's 
men,  the  wars  he  waged  were  declared  and 
ended  by  Caesar,  the  triumphs  were  Caesar's 
triumphs,  the  salute  given  to  the  imperator 
after  victory  was  given  to  Caesar. 

Again,  as  in  old  days  the  provincials  had 
had  the  right  of  appeal  to  the  Roman  people, 
so  now  they  had  their  appeal,  so  highly  prized 
under  the  Empire,  to  Caesar,  who  represented 
the  Sovereign  People  of  Rome. 

This  whole  system  could  not  but  mean 
efficiency  in  the  highest  degree.  So  ex- 
cellent, indeed,  was  its  effect  that  even  those 
emperors  who  seemed  to  Rome  to  be  monsters 
appeared  to  the  provincials  in  the  light  of 
admirable  rulers. 

Naturally  this  efficiency  was  respected  and 
envied  both  by  the  governors  and  by  the 
governed  of  the  senatorial  provinces.  These 
had,  of  course,  improved  to  a  certain  extent. 
They  were,  as  before,  governed  by  ex-consuls, 
or  praetors,  responsible  to  the  Senate,  who 


Augustus 

took  with  them  a  quaestor  for  the  financial 
executive  work. 

But  the  responsibility  was  only  technical; 
Augustus  could,  in  practice,  impose  a  check. 
The  governors  must  have  at  least  five  years' 
standing  in  their  rank.  Also,  the  ranks  of 
the  magistracy  were  now  filled  by  the  nominees 
of  Augustus  himself. 

For  foreign  and  military  affairs  Augustus 
had,  as  we  have  said,  complete  control. 
Besides,  the  provinces  left  to  the  Senate  were 
those  least  inclined  or  exposed  to  war:  they 
were  even  described  as  provincice  inermes, 
or  *  unarmed  provinces.' 

For  taxation  the  old  policy  of  levying 
requisitions,  rightful  and  otherwise,  which 
had  been  such  a  scandal  in  its  day,  was 
entirely  suppressed.  All  revenue  arrange- 
ments were  made  by  Csesar's  procurators. 

Again,  the  senatorial  governors  had  only 
a  very  limited  right  to  confer  or  refuse  the 
Roman  franchise.  They  were  liable  to  re- 
ceive direct  orders  and  instructions  from  the 
Emperor;  and  appeals  were  addressed  to  the 
Emperor  over  their  heads.  In  more  than  one 


Foreign  and  Military  Policy 

case — for  example,  those  of  Bithynia  and  Sicily 
— Augustus  himself  arranged  the  affairs  of  the 
province  and  left  the  governor  to  watch  over 
what  he  had  instituted.  And,  to  sum  up 
the  whole  matter,  both  the  governors  and  the 
governed  grew  into  the  habit  of  looking  to  the 
Emperor  for  all  things. 

Under  the  Republic  there  had  never  been 
any  means  of  ascertaining  either  the  revenue 
or  the  expense  of  the  provinces,  or,  indeed, 
of  the  Empire  as  a  whole,  nor  had  there  been 
any  sort  of  control  over  either  income  or  ex- 
penditure. Augustus  remedied  this  in  the 
most  thorough  manner.  Finance,  indeed, 
seems  to  have  been  his  strongest  point. 

He  began  by  having  a  scientific  statistical 
survey  of  the  whole  Empire  made  by  the 
greatest  experts  the  time  afforded.  He  also 
took  the  census  of  his  own  provinces.  He 
then  instituted  two  definite  and  regular  forms 
of  tax,  instead  of  the  numerous  and  irregular 
modes  of  taxation  imposed  under  the  Republic. 
These  were  the  tributum  soli,  or  land  tax, 
and  the  tributum  capitis,  or  property  tax. 
He  had,  of  course,  the  entire  control  of  all 


Augustus 

revenue  and  expenditure.  He  also  organized 
fixed  allowances  instead  of  the  ancient  req- 
uisitions. Needless  to  say,  the  old  system 
of  farming  out  taxes  was  extinct. 

He  then  arranged  for  an  annual  budget 
showing  the  financial  condition,  year  by  year, 
of  the  Empire.  At  his  death  he  left  a  complete 
financial  statement  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

He  also  organized  and  developed  the  possi- 
bilities of  each  province  by  putting  down 
all  brigandage  and  piracy  and  establishing 
commercial  and  personal  security;  and  he 
spent  liberally  on  public  works,  besides  free- 
ing commerce  and  industry  in  general  from 
harassing  and  hampering  restrictions. 

Lastly,  he  arranged  that  the  citizens  of 
Rome  and  Italy  should  bear  a  share — not  a 
large  share,  but  still  a  share — of  the  cost  of 
governing  and  protecting  their  Empire. 

In  short,  Augustus  organized,  and  organ- 
ized thoroughly,  the  whole  of  the  external 
maintenance  and  development  of  the  Roman 
Empire. 

We  shall  now  turn  to  his  internal  or  home 
policy. 

136 


CHAPTER  IX:    The  Home 
Policy  of  Augustus 

WE  have  already  spoken  of  the  re- 
organization of  the  Senate  and  its 
conversion  by  Augustus  into  what 
we  may  almost  call  an  official  peerage.  We 
now  have  to  glance  at  its  functions  as  a 
governing  body. 

The  legal  prerogative  of  the  Senate  had  been 
to  advise  the  magistrates  when  consulted.  The 
advice  so  given  was  registered  in  a  senatus- 
consultum  (opinion  of  the  Senate  consulted), 
which  was  a  command  and  became  law. 

But  under  Augustus  the  Senate  was  very 
seldom  asked  for  advice,  and  when  that 
advice  was  asked  for  and  given  it  was  no 
longer  held  to  be  a  command.  Again,  the 
field  of  consultation  was  greatly  narrowed, 
in  that  Augustus  held  in  his  own  hands  all 
the  greater  issues  of  government,  the  foreign 
policy,  war,  etc.,  etc.  The  magistrates  merely 
sought  advice  on  their  own  departmental 
questions;  and  even  these  were  greatly  re- 
stricted, not  only  by  the  indirect  control 
which  Augustus  had  over  all  things,  but  also 


Augustus 

by  the  fact  that  he  definitely  annexed  several 
important  branches  of  the  executive  into  his 
own  hands. 

Augustus  kept  up  the  fiction  that  the  Senate 
was  the  consulting  body.  He  convened  it 
and  consulted  it,  and,  as  a  senator  himself,  he 
spoke  and  gave  his  opinions;  but  naturally 
such  opinions  were  little  less  than  decisions. 
Moreover,  he  could  always  stop  discussion  by 
virtue  of  his  tribunician  power,  so  that  in  prac- 
tice the  Senate  did  little  more  than  listen  to  his 
announcements  and  confirm  his  proposals. 

He  did,  however,  frequently  use  the  Senate 
for  edicts;  it  gave  an  appearance  of  consti- 
tutional tradition,  and  also  lessened  his  per- 
sonal responsibility.  His  successors  followed 
his  example  in  this. 

He  found  another  function  for  the  Senate, 
that  of  acting  as  a  High  Court  of  Justice. 
But  here  again  any  real  power  it  might  have 
had  was  neutralized  by  the  fact  that  supreme 
appeal  was  vested  in  him,  above  the  heads 
of  his  senators. 

In  a  word,  the  Senate  had  some  work  to  do, 
but  nothing  was  done  without  the  Emperor's 

138 


Home  Policy 

approval.  The  real  mission  in  life  of  a 
senator  was  to  be  rich  and  dignified  and  to 
make  a  fine  display.  All  chance  of  regaining 
the  ancient  power,  or  even  so  much  of  it  as 
had  remained  during  the  great  wars  of  the 
last  hundred  years,  was  gone  beyond  recall. 

The  Assembly  of  the  People — the  ancient 
Comitia — was  also  practically  extinct.  The 
Sovereign  People  of  Rome  now  meant  little 
more  than  the  city  mob:  it  was  largely  com- 
posed of  aliens,  freedmen,  and  slaves;  such 
Roman  citizens  as  there  were  were  of  an 
inferior  breed,  too  proud  to  keep  shops,  but 
quite  pleased  to  accept  all  that  their  patron 
would  give  in  the  way  of  games  and  food. 

Augustus  could  do  little  enough  with  this 
city  mob.  He  insisted,  as  far  as  possible,  on 
decency  of  behaviour  and  dress,  especially 
on  the  maintenance  of  the  Roman  toga  as 
against  foreign  and  'servile'  garments.  He 
put  down  all  the  old  political  and  electioneer- 
ing clubs,  which  had  been  simply  nests  of 
corruption;  and  of  course  he  stopped  all 
rioting  and  violence.  He  did  allow  the  most 
respectable  of  the  ancient  'guilds,'  or  collegia, 


Augustus 

to  survive,  and  he  even  permitted  the  regis- 
tration of  new  guilds,  provided  always  that 
they  also  were  respectable. 

But  Augustus  did  not  wholly  destroy  the 
plebs  as  a  factor  in  the  State.  He  allowed 
the  populace  to  preserve  their  old  right  of 
electing  magistrates  and  passing  laws:  but 
as  both  magistrates  and  laws  were  of  his  own 
making  this  meant  little  more  than  a  formality. 
The  Comitia  had  no  part  in  the  Empire,  save 
to  maintain  the  theory  that  'The  sovereignty 
of  the  people  is  the  maxim  of  empire. ' 

Augustus  did  make  one  attempt  to  inspire 
a  feeling  of  corporate  life  and  work  in  the 
city  populace;  he  instituted  wards,  or  vici, 
under  the  control  of  ward-magistrates,  who 
were  plebeians  elected  by  the  plebs,  and  who 
played  a  certain  part  in  police  and  fire-brigade 
work  and  the  like. 

But  in  the  end  the  plebs,  or  Sovereign 
People,  became  little  more  than  the  clients  of 
the  Emperor,  their  patron  and  protector. 

We  now  touch  on  the  'outcome*  of  the 
Senate  and  the  people,  namely,  the  magis- 
trates. We  have  shown  how  the  elections 

140 


Home  Policy 

and  general  conduct  of  these  were  'modified' 
— to  put  it  mildly — by  Augustus. 

As  time  went  on  the  young  men  of  sena- 
torial rank  saw  that  if  they  wished  to  find 
work  that  would  satisfy  their  ambition  it  was 
far  better  for  them  to  enter  the  Emperor's 
own  department  as  soon  as  they  could  and 
become  legates  of  some  kind  or  other. 

Of  course  Augustus  had  improved  con- 
ditions; no  one  could  hold  an  appointment 
even  in  a  senatorial  province  unless  he  had 
at  least  five  years'  standing  in  his  particular 
rank;  but  we  can  imagine  how  small  would 
be  the  scope  for  a  senatorial  magistrate  who 
had  no  great  issues  to  deal  with,  and  who 
found  that  even  in  the  small  issues  he  was 
continually  being  supervised  and  checked  by 
the  Emperor's  officials,  or  even  the  Emperor 
himself.  The  Senate  might  bestow  honour, 
but  it  was  the  Emperor  who  gave  a  career. 

We  now  come  to  the  Equestrian  Order,  of 
which  we  have  spoken  in  an  earlier  chapter 
(Ch.  II).  But  before  showing  what  Augustus 
made  of  this  class  we  must  mention  his 

great  innovation,  the  Concilium,  which  prac- 

141 


Augustus 

tically  superseded  both  Senate  and  plebs  as 
directing  bodies,  and  paved  the  way  for  his 
reconstitution  of  the  executive  and  his  use 
of  this  very  Equestrian  Order. 

The  Concilium  was  a  body  consisting  of 
the  Emperor,  the  acting  consuls,  the  consuls- 
designate  for  the  next  year,  and  fifteen 
senators  chosen  by  lot  and  serving  for  six 
months;  it  was  the  body  to  which  Augustus 
referred  discussion  of  the  important  business 
of  the  State. 

If  we  wish  to  have  a  vivid  idea  of  the  Con- 
cilium, and  indeed  of  the  actual  government 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  we  must  imagine 
our  own  Empire  governed  directly  by  the 
Sovereign  in  conjunction  with  his  Privy 
Council,  and  his  decrees  executed  by  the 
permanent  officials  of  the  Civil  Service,  the 
Houses  of  Lords  and  Commons  being  relegated 
to  the  position  of  debating  assemblies. 

For  his  Civil  Service  Augustus  employed 
the  Equestrian  Order. 

The  changes  that  had  been  forced  upon  the 
senatorial  nobility  were  repeated  with  the 

knights.     There    were   plenty    of   men    who 

142 


Home  Policy 

had  the  Equestrian  financial  qualification, 
and  who  might  be  called  titular  knights: 
under  Augustus  they  lost  any  sort  of  legal 
claim  to  the  title.  He  revised  and  organized 
the  order,  and  wholly  reserved  to  himself  the 
right  of  admission  and  exclusion. 

Just  as  he  was  chief  senator  and  head  of 
the  senatorial  or  highest  order  in  the  State 
(amplissimus  ordd),  so  he  arranged  that  the 
younger  members  of  his  family  should  be  the 
chiefs  of  the  Equestrian  Order. 

We  have  seen  what  position  the  knights 
occupied  formerly:  they  had  had  a  certain 
part  in  the  taxation  and  in  the  legal  business 
of  the  Empire.  Augustus  had,  of  course, 
taken  all  this  from  them. 

For  the  rest,  they  were  the  financiers  and 
business  men  of  the  community — the  pro- 
fessional men. 

Augustus  found  for  them  both  business  and 
profession  in  the  shape  of  the  Civil  Service. 
As  we  know,  the  highest  posts  in  the  pro- 
vinces were  given  to  legates  of  senatorial 
rank,  but  the  minor  provinces  were  ad- 
ministered for  the  Emperor  by  procurators 


Augustus 

or  prefects  (procurators  also  were  given  posts 
in  important  provinces,  under  the  governors). 
Egypt  was  under  a  prefect,  for  example. 

There  were  Admiralty  posts  at  Ravenna  and 
Misenum,  and  there  were  posts  in  the  Home 
Civil  Service,  such  as  head  of  the  city  police, 
head  of  the  corn  supply,  and  of  the  water 
supply;  there  was  the  War  Office  prize, 
head  of  the  Praetorian  Guard.  All  these  posts 
were  given  to  knights. 

Augustus  had  created  a  service  which  was 
completely  outside  the  senatorial  magistracy, 
and  he  filled  it  from  a  class  that  was  completely 
outside  the  senatorial  order — a  class  defined 
and  recruited  by  himself  and  bound  to  him 
in  loyalty  and  gratitude,  inasmuch  as  he  had 
given  to  it  both  rank  and  career.  It  must 
not  be  forgotten  either  that  Augustus  fre- 
quently promoted  deserving  Equestrians  to 
senatorial  rank. 

We  must  now  touch  on  one  section  of  the 
community  whose  position  was  ambiguous 
in  that  they  were  neither  Romans  nor  pro- 
vincials. We  allude  to  the  Italians. 

As   we   have   said,   Augustus   carried   out 
144 


Home  Policy 

the  municipalization  of  Italy.  And  in  that 
municipalization  he  contrived  to  found  yet 
another  new  class  among  the  Italians. 

We  have  shown  how  Augustus  preferred 
what  may  be  called  the  caste  system  in 
the  Empire,  and  how  he  distinguished  and 
preserved  the  distinction  between  Romans, 
Italians,  provincials,  and  members  of  allied 
States.  He  also  applied  the  caste  system  to 
Rome  itself,  and  introduced  strict  laws  with 
respect  to  intermarriage  of  rank  with  rank, 
very  much  as  he  introduced  a  strict  super- 
vision over  the  freeing  of  slaves  and  the 
granting  of  the  franchise  to  freedmen. 

We  should  say  here  that  Augustus  encour- 
aged marriage  and  family  life  by  imposing 
a  tax  upon  celibates  and  giving  special  rights 
to  fathers  of  three  or  more  children. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  caste  system. 
Augustus  instituted  in  the  municipalities  of 
Italy  a  class  known  as  the  ' Augustales. ' 
We  may  perhaps  call  them  *  Imperial  freed- 
men.5 Freedmen  could  not  hold  office  in 
their  municipality,  but  at  least  they  might 
gain  some  importance,  and  a  certain  degree 

145 


Augustus 

°f  public  spirit  might  be  instilled  into  them. 
Augustus  arranged  that  in  each  municipality 
sexviri  Augustales  should  be  elected  annually 
from  among  the  freedmen  by  the  local  Senate. 
These  six  special  freedmen  were  bound,  in 
return  for  this  honorary  title  conferred  on 
them,  to  contribute  to  the  municipal  chest 
and  to  provide  public  games.  Out  of  these 
Augustales  developed  gradually  a  species 
of  municipal  aristocracy,  under  the  direct 
patronage  of  the  Emperor.  They  were  to  the 
Italian  municipal  aristocracy  very  much  what 
the  knights  were  to  the  Senate.  'To  gain  a 
place  among  the  Augustales  became  an  object 
of  ambition  to  the  richer  freedmen,  to  whom 
it  gave  a  recognized  station  in  their  com- 
munity, and  welcome  opportunities  of  display- 
ing their  wealth  and  public  spirit. '  (Pelham.) 
It  is  curious  to  note  that  Rome  herself 
had  not  even  a  municipality.  She  was 
practically  entirely  governed  by  the  Civil 
Service  of  the  Emperor,  under  the  general 
supervision  of  a  'prefect  of  the  city.'  The 
title  was  old,  but  the  office  only  became  per- 
manent after  a  peculiarly  flagrant  period  of 

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trouble,  22-19  B.C.,  when  Augustus  sharply 
told  the  magistrates  that  as  they  evidently  had 
not  the  ability  and  he  had  not  the  time  to  keep 
Rome  in  order  Rome  must  have  a  master. 

Rome  indeed  needed  a  master.  Though 
the  city  contained  nearly  a  million  inhabi- 
tants, it  had  practically  no  police;  fires  and 
floods  were  disastrously  frequent;  the  corn 
and  water  supply  were  hopelessly  defective. 
And  it  is  hard  to  see  what  Augustus  could 
have  done  except  take  personal  control  of 
the  situation. 

After  all,  a  municipality  would  hardly 
have  suited  Rome,  being,  as  she  was,  the 
central  seat  of  all  government  and  authority. 
It  is  never  easy  for  the  municipal  and  the 
governmental  authorities  to  work,  or  even 
to  exist,  harmoniously  in  the  same  city, 
especially  if  that  city  is  the  metropolis;  the 
machinery  of  the  great  general  executive 
overshadows  that  of  the  small  local  execu- 
tive. Besides,  Rome,  as  we  have  said,  con- 
sisted, apart  from  the  wealthy  senators  and 
the  busy  knightly  class,  of  many  mixed 
elements.  She  had  not  that  solid  burgher 

147 


Augustus 

stratum  which  is  the  real  foundation  of 
municipal  life. 

As  a  city  Rome  was  greatly  improved  by 
Augustus  and  Agrippa.  Agrippa  did  much 
good  work  when  curule  sedile  in  33  B.C.,  and 
he  was  for  ten  years  associated  as  a  sort  of 
partner  in  the  Empire  with  Augustus. 

Many  fine  public  buildings  were  erected, 
and  among  these  a  splendid  edifice  in  the 
Campus  Martius  especially  for  the  Comitia, 
for  voting  purposes:  this  building  was  sur- 
rounded with  statues  of  Republican  heroes. 

It  is  noticeable  and  characteristic  of  Augus- 
tus that  he  would  not  himself  have  a  splendid 
palace,  nor  would  he  allow  statues  of  himself 
to  be  erected  in  the  city. 

He  confined  his  lavishness  to  public  and 
national  expenditure.  Much  of  this  was 
devoted  to  work  outside  Rome.  The  Via 
Flaminia,  the  great  North  Road,  was  put  in  a 
state  of  thorough  repair,  as  were  the  other 
roads  throughout  Italy.  The  coast  defences 
also  were  thoroughly  organized. 

Augustus  spent  large  sums  of  money  on 

temples   and   chapels   or   shrines   for  public 

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worship.  It  is  notable  that  he  specially 
indicated — we  may  say  that  he  publicly 
justified — certain  features  in  his  own  career. 
In  the  old  Forum  he  built  a  temple  to  the 
'Divine  Julius/  and  in  the  new  Forum, 
called  the  Forum  of  Augustus,  another  to 
Mars  the  Avenger:  these  referred  to,  and 
so  to  speak  explained,  his  ruthless  vengeance 
on  the  murderers  of  his  great  uncle.  On  the 
Palatine  Mount  he  built  a  temple  to  Apollo 
of  Actium,  thus  commemorating  his  victory 
over  Antony. 

This  brings  us  to  the  question  of  religion. 
Augustus  held  the  office  of  Chief  Pontiff. 
In  the  first  place  it  was  only  fitting  that  this 
honour  should  be  his;  secondly,  he  thus  had 
the  opportunity  of  re-establishing  the  old 
Roman  religion.  We  have  said  already  that 
Augustus  possessed  a  vein  of  homely  super- 
stition (this,  at  least,  is  the  opinion  of  one 
of  his  biographers;  we  quote  it  as  such); 
also  he  had  a  strong  strain  of  burgher  Italian 
blood;  also  he  had  the  other  strain  of  noble 
blood  by  his  descent  from  the  great  family 

who  claimed  to  go  back  even  to  the  Founder  of 

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Augustus 

Rome.  These  three  facts  fully  explain  why  he 
should  have  so  strong  a  feeling  for  the  genuine 
old  worship  of  the  country,  and  such  a  dislike 
to  the  exotic  and  neurotic  alien  cults  that  were 
just  beginning  to  intrude  into  Roman  life. 

But  he  had  another  and  a  far  stronger 
reason;  he  saw  that  an  empire  without  a 
fixed  national  idea  of  divine  favour,  extended 
from  the  foundation  of  the  State  even  to  the 
achievement  of  its  greatness,  could  have  but 
little  permanent  faith  in  its  own  destiny  and 
guiding  star. 

Above  all,  he  saw  that  that  divine  favour, 
that  destiny,  and  that  guiding  star  must  be, 
as  they  reasonably  could  be,  bound  up  with 
the  fortunes  of  the  family  to  whom  the  State 
owed  its  present  greatness. 

The  gods,  now  duly  recognized,  worshipped, 
and  thanked  by  Rome  for  all  they  had  done 
for  Rome  through  the  agency  of  the  favoured 
Julian  family,  would  continue  to  extend  that 
favour,  always  through  that  same  family, 
to  Rome  and  to  her  empire. 

Actual  worship  of  Augustus  himself  was 
not  an  official  fact  until  after  his  death,  but 

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Home  Policy 

a  spontaneous  cult  did  arise  during  his  life 
in  different  parts  of  the  country  and  in  the 
provinces — witness  the  altar  to  Rome  and 
Augustus  erected  in  the  country  of  the  Ubii; 
and  even  in  Rome  many  families  worshipped 
the  genius  of  Augustus  (we  might  translate 
genius  as  'sacrosanct  and  favoured  per- 
sonality ')  among  their  own  Lares ,  or  house- 
hold gods.  There  were,  however,  regular 
public  prayers  for  the  safety  of  Augustus, 
and  thanksgivings  for  his  victories  and 
services;  and  his  various  anniversaries  were 
specially  and  officially  observed. 

With  the  revival  of  the  national  worship 
Augustus  took  care  to  revive  its  history  and 
traditions:  hence  the  celebration  of  the  Secular 
Games  in  17  B.C.,  with  the  Carmen  Sceculare 
specially  written  for  these  by  Horace. 

The  poets  were  enlisted  into  this  cause. 
Virgil's  Mneid  is  the  history  of  the  divine 
favour  extended  to  Rome  and  culminating 
in  her  greatness  in  association  with  that  of 
the  Julian  family.  Ovid  revives  and  'edits' 
legend  after  legend  of  the  old  gods  and  their 
doings.  Horace,  in  at  least  one  ode  (Parcus 


Augustus 

deorum  cultor  et  infrequens1) ,  indicates  the 
value  and  the  necessity  of  real  faith  and 
reverence.  Augustus  was  happy  in  his  poets. 

His  one  really  great  prose-writer,  Livy, 
performed  a  similar  task  for  the  heroes 
of  Roman  history,  commemorating  in  the 
clearest  possible  language  the  many  deeds 
that  had  made  Rome  great. 

But  the  poets  did  yet  a  third  service  in 
suggesting  a  species  of  resignation  and  con- 
tentment for  those  who,  now  that  the  Re- 
publican regime  was  extinct,  felt  that  there 
was  far  less  scope  for  them  in  life.  Virgil's 
Georgics  teach  the  pleasure  a  country  gentle- 
man can  derive  from  the  cultivation  of  his 
domains.  Horace  dwells  on  the  happiness  of 
a  retired  and  philosophical  life. 

The  Augustan  age,  as  it  is  called,  is  a 
commemoration  of  the  greatness  of  the  past 
and  the  rational  and  peaceful  enjoyment  that 
may  be  obtained  in  the  present. 

We  can  here  leave  the  home  policy  of 
Augustus.  He  had  eliminated  all  that  was 
bad  and  useless  in  the  old  regime,  and  had 

1  'I,  worshipping  the  gods  seldom  and  with  no  great  fervour.' 
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adapted  and  improved  all  that  was  good. 
The  gaps  in  the  Republican  machinery  he 
filled  up,  and,  generally  speaking,  he  so 
arranged  the  machine  that  it  could  deal 
with  the  far  ampler  material  submitted  and 
to  be  submitted  to  it.  For  those  whom  his 
changes  had  deprived  of  their  original  scope 
for  action  he  found  other  action;  for  others, 
who  had  not  as  yet  worked  seriously  for  the 
State  and  to  whom  it  was  necessary  to  give 
real  and  serious  employment,  he  provided  both 
career  and  honour.  For  those  who  did  not 
need  nor  wish  to  work  there  was  reasonable 
scope,  at  least  for  contentment,  at  home. 
And  he  established  and  organized  and  kept 
in  their  proper  places  all  the  different  classes 
of  the  State. 

His  successor?  This  question  had  through- 
out been  a  difficulty  for  Augustus.  Apart 
from  the  fact  that  there  was  no  definite 
arrangement  for  a  successor,  there  was  no 
definite  successor  ready  to  hand!  Had 
Augustus  died,  say,  twenty  years  earlier 
than  he  did,  the  supreme  command  would 
unquestionably  have  devolved  on  Agrippa, 


Augustus 

whom  he  actually  associated  with  himself  as  a 
partner  in  the  Empire;  but  when  Augustus 
was  nearing  his  end  Agrippa  was  far  too  old* 
Maecenas  might  have  been  capable  of  empire, 
but  again  here  was  the  question  of  age. 
Drusus  died,  as  did  Gaius  and  Lucius  Csesar, 
the  sons  of  Agrippa  whom  Augustus  had 
adopted;  they  were  the  sons  of  his  own 
daughter  Julia,  whom  Agrippa  had  married, 
and  they  were  his  preferred  candidates.  The 
young  Marcellus,  son  of  his  sister  Octavia, 
died.  Augustus,  and  indeed  all  Rome,  had 
fixed  their  hopes  on  this  child  of  promise:  and 
had  not  Rome's  national  poet  said,  through 
the  mouth  of  Anchises,  the  sire  of  Rome's 
founder,  'Marcellus  shalt  thou  be:  give  ye 
lilies  with  full  hands' — words  that  brought 
tears  to  the  eyes  even  of  the  hard,  strong 
Livia  when  she  heard  them  after  the  child's 
death? 

There  remained  only  Tiberius.  He  had 
been  fully  tested  by  difficult  commands  in 
Germany  and  Illyricum  and  delicate  missions 
in  Armenia;  he  had  distinguished  himself  in 
that  most  thorny  and  dangerous  province, 


Home  Policy 

Pannonia;  he  was  a  sound  and  cautious 
general,  an  able  administrator,  and  was  rec- 
ognized as  a  possible  successor  by  the  fact 
^that  he,  with  Augustus,  held  the  tribunician 
'power:  this  power,  by  the  way,  became  in 
Jater  times  one  of  the  distinguishing  pre- 
rogatives of  the  heir-apparent.  But  he  was 
gloomy  and  sullen,  and  Augustus  disliked 
him,  and  yielded  largely  to  Livia's  maternal 
ambition  in  conferring  such  powers  and 
honours  as  he  did  upon  his  stepson. 

Augustus  had  no  choice,  and  Tiberius 
succeeded  to  the  Imperial  throne  at  his  step- 
father's death  in  A.D.  14;  and  though  it  is 
not  our  purpose  to  speak  particularly  of 
Augustus's  successor,  we  may  say  that,  until 
his  later  years  made  him  morose  and  over- 
suspicious  and  cruel,  he  was  a  capable  and 
good  ruler.  Even  Tacitus,  who  detested  him 
and  his  memory,  had  to  admit  that  he  was 
imperil  capax  ('fit  to  hold  empire'),  though 
he  cannot  refrain  from  the  bitter  qualify- 
ing phrase,  nisi  imperasset — 'had  he  not 
held  it!' 

We  conclude  this  chapter — perforce  some- 


Augustus 

what  lengthy,  as  it  deals  with  various  subjects 
or  various  phases  in  the  life  and  character  of 
Augustus  which  cannot  well,  in  so  short  a  book, 
be  treated  independently — by  quoting  George 
Warrington  Steevens,  to  whom  we  have  al- 
ready alluded.  Steevens  speaks  through  the 
lips  of  Claudius,  a  'loutish'  prince,  but  not 
without  his  moments  of  clear  insight.  Lout- 
ish in  body  as  in  mind,  Claudius  stumbles 
occasionally  in  both. 

'Yes,  the  d-divine  Augustus,  you  see,  had 
to  be  d-downy.  He  did  not  really  want  the 
people  to  see  how  much  power  he'd  really 
got.  He  was  afraid  of  being  pinked  like  his 
uncle.  So  he  never  took  any  sp-p — any 
definite  office  in  the  State,  you  know.  So, 
n-nobody  quite  knew  what  was  the  Emperor's 
prerogative  and  what  wasn't,  you  know. 
That's  been  the  difficulty  with  all  his  s-suc- 
cessors.  We  want  a  fixed  Constitution.  Each 
Emperor's  afraid  to  g-go  beyond  his  powers, 
and  afraid  n-not  to.  I'm  the  f-first  Emperor 
that's  seen  that.  .  .  . 

' .  .  .  So,  you  see,  I  get  behind  my  favour- 
ites and  wives,  so  as  not  to  be  unpopular. 

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Pallas!1  Yes,  I  know  he's  an  awful  sc-c — 
rogue,  but  I  like  him.  And  the  more  a  sc-c — 
rogue  he  is,  the  honester  I'll  look  when  I  come 
forward  and  supersede  him.  You  see,  I'm  not 
such  a  f-fool,  Lepidus,  eh?' 

This  sums  up  the  situation.  And  Claudius 
actually  did  try  to  legalize  the  constitu- 
tion, but  had  no  real  success.  The  most 
that  he  and  his  successors  could  do  was  to 
take  full  advantage  of  conditions  and  to 
encourage  what  we  have  already  called  the 
craving  for  empire  which  Augustus  had  so 
carefully  instilled  into  Rome. 

1  Pallas  was  one  of  the  rascally  but  capable  freedmen  whom 
Claudius  and  others  employed  as"  private  secretaries  in  different 
directions.  Under  Hadrian  all  such  posts  were  given  to  knights. 


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CHAPTER  X:  Augustus,  the 
Man  and  the  Prince 

LET    us    glance  at  Rome  in,  say,  the 
second  or  third  year  of  the  Christian 
era,  the  seven  hundred  and  fifty-fifth 
year  or  so  since  the  foundation  of  the  city. 

We  see  Augustus  firmly  established  in  his 
position;  and  a  very  curious  position  it  is. 
In  actual  fact  he  is  master.  He  commands 
all  the  armies,  makes  all  the  treaties,  decides 
when  and  whither  the  eagles  are  to  be  borne, 
where  they  shall  be  planted  fast  to  mark 
the  frontiers  of  Rome.  He  is  the  chief 
of  the  Senate,  and  he  can  make  and  unmake 
it  as  he  pleases:  he  has  made  it  indeed! 
For  he  has  given  grants  here  and  there,  or 
conferred  the  broad  stripe,  without  grants, 
upon  the  men  whom  he  has  seen  fit  to  promote 
to  his  new  nobility.  And  into  the  Senate 
House  itself  he  has  nominated  or  quietly 
recommended  his  quaestors,  praetors,  consuls, 
as  he  chose.  He  calls  the  Senate  together, 
speaks,  asks  questions;  but  when  he  speaks 
a  law  is  made.  If  he  chooses,  the  Senate, 
dissolves,  to  meet  again  only  when  he  wishes. 

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The  Man  and  the  Prince 

Consuls,  praetors,  and  quaestors  still  have 
work  to  do;  but  it  is  greatly  curtailed.  At 
any  moment  a  'procurator'  may  descend 
upon  a  province,  investigate,  quite  inde- 
pendently of  the  real  governor,  and  make 
his  report  direct  to  headquarters.  At  any 
moment  the  master  may  descend  upon  the 
province  and  set  its  affairs  in  order  himself, 
as  he  did  in  Sicily  and  Bithynia.  At  any 
moment  he  may  call  up  the  governor  and 
give  him  hints,  even  special  directions,  that 
entirely  override  the  governor's  own  inten- 
tions or  policy. 

Moreover,  there  is  little  enough  scope  in  the 
provinces.  All  the  best  have  gone.  The 
wealth-laden  Egypt,  Gaul,  Pannonia,  where 
there  was  always  the  chance  of  distinction 
in  war;  Noricum,  the  Armenian  border-land 
— all  these  are  the  master's  own.  Only  a 
few  tame  districts  are  left.  It  may  be  an 
honour  to  be  a  proconsul,  but  it  certainly 
is  not  a  career.  Far  better  to  aim  straight 
for  a  legateship  directly  under  Augustus 
himself. 

Even  in  Rome  the  work  is  shorn  of  all  its 


Augustus 

importance.  What  of  those  sharp  words 
twenty-three  years  ago,  when  Rome  was  given 
a  master,  a  governor  under  the  supreme 
Governor!  The  corn,  the  aqueducts,  the 
police,  the  roads,  nearly  everything  is  under 
the  master's  own  charge,  and  he  puts  in  his 
own  men  just  as  he  pleases — and  not  even 
nobles!  Mere  knights,  wealthy  or  fairly 
well-to-do  business  men,  those  very  fellows 
who  used  to  quarrel  with  the  Senate  and 
blackmail  the  governors  of  provinces,  and 
squeeze  the  last  drop  at  forty  or  fifty  per  cent, 
out  of  the  luckless  provincials.  But  so  did 
certain  senators,  after  all!  The  provinces 
were  certainly  rather  a  scandal  in  the  old 
days.  Sicily  still  remembers  Verres,  who 
didn't  even  dare  come  into  court  once  he 
knew  that  Cicero  had  prepared  his  brief! 

And  Rome!  It  really  was  abominable. 
Even  in  daylight  one  might  be  killed  in  a 
street  riot.  And  there  was  never  any  water, 
or  corn.  And  the  floods!  And  the  fires! 
It  is  certainly  an  improvement,  and  the  old 
rulers  have  only  themselves  to  blame  if  a 

cleverer,  longer-sighted  man  than  themselves 

1 60 


The  Man  and  the  Prince 

has  taken  all  these  things  out  of  their 
hands. 

Rome  and  all  that  belongs  to  Rome — a 
large  slice  of  the  world  now — would  have 
indeed  been  hopeless  without  the  Prince,  as 
Maecenas  calls  him.  Imagine  Antony,  half 
satrap,  half  Pharaoh,  with  his  foreign  'Queen 
of  Kings'!  or  the  weak  Lepidus!  or  the  old 
Republicans,  Cassius  or  Brutus.  Decimus 
Brutus  was  a  man,  true.  But  could  he 
or  his  friends  have  restored  order?  Would 
they  have  given  Rome  her  splendour  at  home 
and  abroad?  Would  Cicero,  with  all  his 
philosophy  ? 

And  after  all  every  one  is  so  tired  of  all 
those  wars  and  proscriptions  and  sudden 
changes  that  drained  all  Italy  both  of  money 
and  of  blood.  Life,  the  restful  life  of  to-day, 
is  worth  living.  If  one  can  do  nothing  else, 
why  not  be  resigned  to  what  Rome  offers? 
A  splendid  palace  like  that  of  Maecenas,  a 
few  poets  and  artists  at  dinner,  plenty  of  poor 
clients;  or  a  country  estate,  nicely  tended 
and  well  farmed,  cultured  leisure  beneath  the 

shadow  of  the  hills,  a  copy  of  Virgil's  new 

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Augustus 

work  on  farming  and  country  life,  or  the  latest 
ode  by  Horace  on  contentment.  One  can 
read  and  reconstruct  the  greatness  of  ancient 
days  in  the  fine  new  history  of  Livy;  one 
can  revive  the  old  gods  in  Ovid's  smooth 
poetry.  Poor  Ovid!  now  he  writes  sorrowful 
poems  from  bleak  ice-fields  at  the  Back  of 
Beyond.  But  he  really  deserved  it;  he  had 
no  business  to  write  scandalous  chronicles  or 
to  mix  himself  up  with  disreputable  intrigues 
in  high  circles.  The  court  is  respectable,  and 
it  should  be  respectable. 

Besides,  one  has  always  those  'new'  men 
to  laugh  at:  they  do  strive  so  desperately  hard 
not  to  appear  enew,'  and  they  are  so  easily 
seen  through,  and  Horace  hits  them  off  so 
neatly! 

Of  course  in  a  way  it  is  annoying  to  see 
the  'new'  men  and  those  knights  taking 
all  those  fine  positions — Noricum,  Rsetia, 
the  Ravenna  base,  the  Prince's  Guard.  Yet 
they  are  well  chosen:  no  'jobs' — all  good 
men,  and  they  work  hard.  It  is  a  pleasure 
to  see  some  one  else  working  hard  to  keep  the 

State  in  order  after  all  those  years  of  terror 

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The  Man  and  the  Prince 

and  unrest.  It  is  an  incitement,  even,  to 
philosophy  and  the  cultivation  of  the  great 
Epicurus. 

Yes,  and  the  master  is  Pontiff  as  well, 
reviving  all  the  old  divine  glories  and  stories. 
Very  excellent  for  the  people.  Legends,  of 
course,  most  unphilosophical,  but  interesting 
and  ingenious  in  their  glorification  of  Rome. 
And  the  Julian  family — they  are  not  for- 
gotten: they  have  their  special  part  therein; 
and  it  is  really  rather  as  if  no  one  else  had  any 
part!  Though  it  isn't  easy  to  see  who  else 
has  done  much  for  Rome  except  the  Divine 
Julius  and  the  Prince. 

But,  after  all,  he  is  only  the  Prince.  No 
more  of  your  Dictators  or  Domini,  no  King- 
ship: that  suggestion  of  Romulus,  wasn't 
at  all  well  received!  He  is  genial,  too; 
very  polite  at  the  meetings  of  the  Senate: 
any  one  can  speak,  and  quite  freely  too; 
and  it  is  always  at  least  interesting  discussing 
and  hearing  views  on  the  new  Bills.  There 
are  no  Tyrants  now,  thank  the  gods;  and 
no  Tyrant-slayers,  thank  the  gods  yet 

more! 

163 


Augustus 

Rome  is  fine  to  look  at,  too,  with  the  new 
Forum,  the  Campus  Martius  building,  all 
those  new  statues,  Apollo's  new  temple,  the 
Divine  Julius's  new  temple,  all  the  little  shrines 
restored.  And,  talking  of  Julius  the  Divine, 
it  will  be  the  Divine  Augustus  one  fine  day. 
He  lives  long,  but  there  were  all  those  illnesses! 
He  can't  be  strong.  He  will  be  the  Divine 
in  any  case;  So-and-so  has  even  now  got 
the  genius  among  the  Lares;  the  provincials 
seem  to  be  putting  up  altars.  Not  that 
that  German  altar  brought  much  luck  to 
Rome!  All  that  fine  country  once  more 
overrun  by  the  forest  savages.  Varus  dead, 
three  full  legions  cut  up,  the  frontier  back  to 
the  Rhine  again  and  likely  to  remain  there! 
Even  Rome  can't  have  everything,  and  cer- 
tainly not  Arabia  and  Ethiopia  the  Blame- 
less! That  was  a  big  mistake,  and  ^Elius 
Gallus  made  it  worse! 

Still,  the  Divine  Augustus  is  simple  enough 
in  his  ways:  no  crown  but  the  civic  crown 
over  the  door;  no  palace — only  a  plain  house; 
no  big  dinners — chiefly  some  salad,  cheese,  and 

the  like.     One  must  go  to  Maecenas  for  a 

164 


The  Man  and  the  Prince 

dinner:  one  mistake  in  a  dish,  and  the  cook 
is  sold  and  a  new  one  bought! 

But  who  will  come  next?  It  seemed  as 
if  Agrippa  would  have  it  all  at  one  time,  just 
when  the  Prince  was  so  ill;  then  Marcellus 
— that  was  unfortunate.  And  the  two  young 
Agrippas:  that  was  mysterious!  Could 
Livia  Augusta — but  one  should  not  say  too 
much!  The  Prince  wouldn't  stand  a  word 
against  her.  But  he  is  lenient  enough  other- 
wise; even  a  conspirator  doesn't  get  very 
severe  measure.  It  might  be  worth  while 
conspiring  if  one  fell  like  a  martyr;  but  to 
be  smiled  at  by  the  Prince,  and  spat  on  by 
the  mob  all  through  their  precious  new  wards! 
No,  not  that  they'll  ever  do  much  with  their 
wards  and  ward-masters:  they're  a  poor  set, 
mostly  slaves  and  foreigners  at  that;  and 
the  real  Romans  just  beg  for  corn  and  flock 
to  the  games,  and  play  at  voting  in  their 
fine  big  Comitia  building. 

To  return,  however,  Tiberius  seems  to  be 
destined:  again  the  August  Livia!  The 
Prince  would  never  tolerate  him,  surely,  but 
for  her.  Still,  he  has  done  good  work,  and  he 

165 


Augustus 

knows  his  business.  It  will  be  rather  slow, 
but  quite  businesslike;  rather  disagreeable, 
but  quite  efficient,  and  quite  safe.  He  won't 
throw  away  men  over  useless  frontiers;  and 
he  knows  his  work  as  a  soldier.  He  will  give 
the  legions  plenty  to  do,  and  we  shan't  see 
many  of  them  near  Rome. 

Augustus  did  well  too  with  those  legions — 
all  over  the  frontiers,  and  the  time-expired 
men  placed  just  where  they  can  be  most 
useful.  Italy  wants  new  blood:  it  had  been 
a  pity  for  Veii  to  remain  in  ruins  and  Perusia 
in  ashes.  They  are  useful,  too,  in  that  rather 
awkward  bit  of  old  Cisalpine  Gaul,  just  in  the 
right  places  to  scare  the  mountaineers  into 
good  behaviour  and  warn  them  to  leave  the 
farmers  alone. 

Rome  is  well  enough,  after  all. 

We  can  imagine  a  reasonably-minded 
senatorial  noble  thinking  and  talking  some- 
what after  this  fashion.  There  may  well 
have  been  a  few  disappointed  men,  but  the 
Roman  world  was  content.  Everything  was 

regularized — so  well  regularized  abroad,  more- 

166 


The  Man  and  the  Prince 

over,  that  even  the  mad  caprices  of  Gaius 
and  the  bestial  cruelties  of  Nero  were  only 
felt  seriously  in  and  near  Rome.  For  the 
provincials  an  excellent  emperor  reigned — 
thanks  to  the  system  which  Augustus  had 
built  up,  stone  by  stone,  on  the  ruins  of  the 
ancient,  worn-out,  and  obsolete  fabric.  As 
he  found  Rome,  so  did  he  find  Roman  power, 
in  brick,  and  he  left  it  in  marble.  Or  perhaps 
we  may  allow  ourselves  a  more  homely 
simile — the  Irishman's  stocking.  He  found 
but  a  few  fragments  of  the  old  homespun; 
he  darned  and  added,  sole  and  heel  and  leg, 
with  good  wool — elastic  wool,  moreover.  It 
was  the  same  stocking,  yet  entirely  different. 
We  know  how  the  later  emperors  made, 
as  it  were,  a  silken  stocking,  extravagant 
and  unseemly;  and  we  know  how,  later  still, 
when  the  hordes  of  savages  were  nearing  the 
borders  of  Rome,  the  Empire  became  parti- 
coloured like  the  hose  of  a  jester,  at  the  last 
a  laughing-stock  for  the  world. 

We  have  twice  quoted   from  George  War- 
rington  Steevens'  Monologues  of  the  Dead.    Let 

167 


Augustus 

us  again  do  so,  more  fully  this  time.  He 
gives,  more  vividly  than  we  can,  a  picture  of 
the  real  Augustus. 

'I  am  late  this  morning.  I  can  feel  in  the 
air  the  vibration  of  the  third  hour.  Attius! 
Attius!  I  suppose  he  thinks  that  having  lain 
so  long  I  may  as  well  wait  until  to-morrow. 
Well,  Attius,  have  you  too  overslept  your- 
self? No  more  dinners  with  Maecenas;  we 
are  getting  too  old  for  them.  It  is  the 
third  hour.  I  will  rise.  But  first  ask  Livia 
Augusta  to  favour  me  with  her  presence. 
Dear  old  Attius!  that  little  trick  of  telling 
him  the  hour  never  fails.  Now  for  my  daily 
bargain  with  the  August.  Madam,  good 
morning;  leave  us,  Attius.  And  how  is  the 
Emperor?  Judging  from  her  roses,  better 
than  her  lazy  deputy.  I  spare  you  the  en- 
comium on  Ma3cenas'  wine.  .  .  . 

' .  .  .  You  must  see  by  now,  Livia,  that 
it's  impossible  for  me  to  let  Tiberius  go  on 
any  longer  as  he's  doing.  You  must  let 
me  send  him  away.  Yes,  yes;  I  know  all 
you've  done  for  me,  but  it  doesn't  justify 

your    son    in    studied    insolence.     After    all, 

168 


The  Man  and  the  Prince 

I'm  supposed  to  be  Proconsul  and  Pontiff 
and  Augustus  and  all  that,  and  I  can't  let 
him  do  it.  Claudian  pride?  Well,  I  can 
only  say  there's  no  vacancy  for  Claudian 
pride  in  Rome  just  at  present.  .  .  .  First, 
you  must  talk  to  him  seriously  about  his 
demeanour — not  as  coming  from  me,  you 
understand.  Secondly,  I  put  him  on  the 
list  for  foreign  service.  Oh,  yes,  you  can  make 
your  mind  easy.  He  shall  have  a  big  war  and 
a  triumph,  and  all  the  fandangles.  Also 
I'll  throw  in  Agrippa:  he  shall  go  abroad  and 
have  no  triumph — I'll  try  to  keep  Julia  quiet. 
I'm  a  generous  Jove,  eh,  Junicula?  Give 
me  a  kiss,  old  wench.  We've  had  some 
battering  times  together,  eh?  Eh?  Eh? 
Adieu,  my  Empress.  Send  in  Cleobulus,  will 
you?  .  .  . 

'H'm.  My  excellent  spouse  was  pleased 
with  my  little  attentions.  Also  she  was 
pleased  with  the  idea  of  her  Tiberius  in 
high  command;  she  doesn't  yet  understand 
the  value  of  interior  lines  in  politics,  my 
Augusta.  I  suppose  she  foresees  her  Tiberius 

crossing  the  Rubicon  while  we  all  sit  tremu- 

169 


Augustus 

lous  at  Rome.  And  yet  she's  seen  the 
Praetorians  at  drill  every  day  these  many 
years.  Naturalists  have  greatly  neglected 
women.  Now,  Cleobulus,  my  wig  and  the 
eye-brightening  stuff.  I  always  assume  you 
don't  give  away  these  secrets  of  the  toilet, 
Cleobulus.  If  you  do,  the  next  wig  will 
be  the  scalp  of  one  Cleobulus,  mysteriously 
disappeared.  Now  the  gown.  Not  that,  you 
nincompoop  of  genius.  How  often  must  I 
tell  you  I'm  only  plain  Proconsul?  That 
will  do;  now  announce  me  at  the  levie.  I 
wonder  who's  there  to-day.  I'm  glad  the 
Roman  senators  haven't  the  political  insight 
of  that  hairdresser. 

'Attius,  precede  me  into  the  ante-chamber, 
while  I  have  a  look  at  the  company.  Gods, 
what  an  air  the  rogue  has  with  him!  And 
how  very  right  he  is,  considering  the  way 
they  grovel  to  him!  A  poor  set  of  curs, 
I'm  afraid,  these  nobles  at  Rome;  yet  I'm 
afraid  I  like  them. 

'Good-day,  gentlemen.  I  fear  I  have  ill 
repaid  this  courteous  attention  by  keeping 
you  so  long  awaiting.  Ah,  Isauricus,  my  dear 

170 


The  Man  and  the  Prince 

old  friend,  this  is  too  kind.  Too  kind.  It 
is  I  that  should  be  calling  on  you;  you  must 
not  expose  yourself  to  this  morning  air; 
all  Rome  is  waiting  for  your  speech  on  this 
new  Land  Bill  of  Agrippa's.  By  the  way, 
Egnatius,  I  do  not  think  you  have  yet  taken 
the  public  into  your  confidence  as  to  your 
attitude?  You  reserve  it?  Ha!  I  am  not 
sure  you  are  right,  if  I  may  say  so.  One  loses 
a  great  part  of  one's  due  influence,  I  always 
think,  unless  one  gives  an  opinion  time  to 
percolate,  as  one  might  say.  I  have  told 
Agrippa  frankly  all  along  that  I  shall  oppose 
him  on  the  municipal  clauses.  What  says 
Piso?  Opposed  to  the  whole  scheme;  you 
will  speak,  of  course?  Aha,  good-day,  lulus. 
What  says  lulus  on  the  question  of  the  hour? 
An  excellent  measure  all  round!  So — well, 
it  should  be  an  interesting  debate,  and  per- 
sonally I  am  still  open  to  be  convinced. 
And  here  is  the  author  of  all  the  trouble 
himself.  How  do  you  do,  Agrippa?  Eh? 
a  word  in  private;  by  all  means,  old  man. 
Want  to  go  away?  No,  no,  dear  fellow,  we 

want   you    here.     Pannonia    and    Germany? 

171 


Augustus 

Nonsense,  you're  losing  your  nerve.  Why, 
we  settled  the  Pannonians  years  ago.  .  .  . 
Well,  we'll  think  it  over.  Morning,  Maecenas; 
survived  your  own  wine,  I  see.  Amusing 
fellow,  that  little  Horace  of  yours.  Under- 
bred? No,  I  didn't  notice  it.  I  tell  you 
what,  though;  if  I  were  that  man,  I  wouldn't 
stand  the  way  you  treat  him  for  five  min- 
utes, good  as  your  dinners  are.  However, 
that's  his  affair.  Been  here  long?  Overheard 
anything?  I'm  beginning  to  agree  with  you 
about  lulus.  See  me  before  dinner.  Well, 
gentlemen,  I  thank  you  once  more  for  the 
high  honour  you  have  paid  me.  I  am  afraid 
you  spoil  me  with  your  indulgence,  for  I  am 
now  about  to  ask  to  be  excused.  You  have 
put  me  in  an  important  public  position  and 
I  am  anxious  not  to  disappoint  you.  Adieu, 
my  friends. 

*H'm.  To-day's  hypocrisy  over.  Not  that 
it  is,  though,  for  I  have  to  play  the  hypocrite 
one  way  and  another  every  minute  of  my  life. 
I'm  beginning  to  think  it's  a  mistake  to  be 
a  tyrant.  It's  exciting  enough  when  you 

have  to  fight  for  it,  but  when  you've  got  it, 

172 


The  Man  and  the  Prince 

decidedly  a  bore.  And  unluckily  the  posing 
isn't  the  worst  of  it;  the  worst  of  it  is  that 
you  have  to  suppress  so  many  good  fellows. 
Now  I  know  Egnatius  is  guilty  of  the  impiety 
of  not  seeing  why  he  should  do  what  I  please 
any  more  than  I  should  do  what  he  pleases. 
I  must  get  rid  of  him;  I  can't  help  myself. 
Such  a  witty,  astute  fellow,  too,  and  what  a 
boxer!  lulus  I  must  get  rid  of,  too.  I 
fancy  Maecenas  has  got  his  own  reasons  for 
wanting  lulus  out  of  the  way;  still,  he's 
his  father's  son,  and  never  quite  safe.  A 
man  I've  known  since  they  first  put  me  into 
the  long  gown.  No,  I  shan't  get  rid  of  lulus. 
He  can  go  to  Gyarus  if  Maecenas  likes.  No, 
hang  it,  why  Gyarus?  He  won't  do  any 
harm  at  Rhodes,  and  at  least  he  can  get  a 
dinner  there.  Poor  old  lulus!  And  poor 
old  Agrippa!  He  wants  to  get  back  to  his 
soldiers.  But  I  can't  do  it.  Once  he  gets 
to  Pannonia,  he'd  forget  his  obedience — 
and  he  is  most  astonishingly  obedient — and 
go  for  the  chiefs.  His  loyalty's  splendid, 
but  I  can't  trust  even  it,  when  the  old  war- 
horse  sees  the  enemy  in  front  of  him.  And 


Augustus 

the  worst  of  it  is  that  the  chiefs  ought  to  be 
smashed  this  summer,  and  no  man  in  the 
world  could  do  it  so  well  as  Agrippa.  It 
would  be  all  over  in  a  month.  But  Pan- 
nonia's  got  to  be  nursed,  for  Pannonia's 
to  be  a  big  thing,  and  Tiberius  is  to  get  his 
triumph  for  it,  sulky  dog.  Yet  he's  got  the 
stuff  in  him,  too.  I  suppose  I'd  better 
make  up  some  reason  to  send  Agrippa  to  Gaul 
again;  Li  via  can't  object  to  him  there.  After 
all,  the  real  devil  of  it  isn't  being  a  tyrant, 
but  being  a  married  tyrant.  There  isn't 
an  easier  or  a  pleasanter  thing  in  the  whole 
world  than  to  go  on  as  I'm  doing  now,  and  keep 
my  place  to  the  end,  and  my  friends  into  the 
bargain.  It's  this  cursed  dynasty  business,  and 
that  cursed  woman — though  she's  behaved  a 
deuced  deal  better  to  me  than  I  deserved.  But 
why  in  the  gods'  name  must  I  turn  out  my 
oldest  friend  to  die  miserably  in  Gaul?  Why, 
to  make  the  way  easy  for  a  moody  young  prig 
that  I  dislike — and  who  dislikes  me.  What  do 
I  get  for  it  all?  I  wish  to  the  gods  I'd  got 
my  uncle's  pluck;  then  I  should  have  been  cut 
to  pieces  years  ago.  Still,  after  all,  Agrippa's 


The  Man  and  the  Prince 

going  to  Gaul  would  be  a  way  out  of  the  Land 
Bill  business,  and  I  begin  to  think  I  went  too 
far  in  that  matter.  Yes;  he  had  better  go.' 

It  would  be  difficult,  in  many  ways,  to 
give  a  better  picture  of  the  man  and  his 
time.  If  anything,  the  picture  is,  however,  a 
shade  cynical.  Augustus  had  many  genuine 
moments  of  kindliness,  especially  with  chil- 
dren, and  he  could  show  and  feel  real 
affection.  Moreover,  he  was  not  merely  a 
shrewd  politician;  he  had  wide  vision  and 
foresight.  One  of  his  biographers  asks  the 
question,  Was  Augustus  imaginative?  He 
points  out  how  Augustus  preferred  his  financial 
statements  and  business  affairs.  But  that  is 
hardly  proof  of  a  lack  of  imagination. 

We  can  surely  say  that,  in  his  way,  Augus- 
tus was  imaginative,  and  in  a  high  sense  of 
the  word.  Not  that  he  was  ever  like  Julius, 
with  that  tremendous  clarity  of  thought  and 
rapidity  of  insight  that  makes  Julius  Caesar 
stand  out  as  one  of  the  world's  greatest  and 
most  wonderful  figures.  He  was  far  more 
worldly,  more  calculating. 


Augustus 

It  may  be  argued  that  he  found  a  plan  ready 
to  his  hand,  that  his  uncle  had  anticipated 
and  even  prepared  much  of  what  he  carried 
out;  but  it  needed  imagination  and  insight 
to  carry  out  so  much,  to  see  it  as  a  whole, 
and  a  connected,  graduated  whole,  a  fabric 
that  should  last  all  those  centuries;  it  needed 
these  gifts  to  see  so  clearly  the  spirit  of  Rome, 
obscured,  maybe,  even  to  the  point  of  ex- 
tinction, but  still  existing,  and  to  rescue  and 
strengthen  that  spirit  in  such  wise  that  the 
history  of  Rome  under  the  Empire  became 
even  greater  than  the  history  of  the  Roman 
Republic.  Only  an  imaginative  man  can  see 
such  things  clearly,  and  only  those  who  have 
that  clear,  far  sight  can  really  claim  to  have 
imagination  in  the  truest  and  greatest  sense  of 
the  word — not  the  mere  faculty  for  diseased  fan- 
tasies, but  the  real  and  high  imagination  with- 
out which  no  great  thing  can  be  seen  or  done. 

Last  of  all,  was  Augustus  a  genius  ?  We  seem 
to  use  that  word  in  many  senses.  A  man  has 
a  genius  for  this  or  for  that;  a  genius  has  only 
one  line  of  thought  or  action;  genius  is  'an  in- 
finite capacity  for  taking  pains';  and  so  forth. 

176 


The  Man  and  the  Prince 

If  genius  means  a  capacity  for  taking  pains, 
Augustus  certainly  fulfils  the  definition  as 
far  as  his  policy  goes.  He  calculated  every- 
thing out  to  the  last  figure,  he  worked  every- 
thing out  to  the  last  detail.  His  financial 
policy  is  a  monument  in  itself,  and  his  building 
up  of  the  Principate  is  a  work  that  perhaps 
no  one  else  in  the  history  of  Rome  could  have 
achieved.  Senate,  consulship,  proconsulate, 
imperium,  tribunate,  censorship,  pontificate, 
he  brought  all  into  his  service  and  that  of 
Rome,  yet  without  actually  annexing  any 
office  or  declaring  any  prerogative  that  could 
not  be  justified  by  .the  law  and  the  constitution. 

Julius  Caesar  was  a  genius  in  the  real  sense 
of  the  word — namely,  one  who  sees  and  does 
successfully,  as  if  by  an  unfailing  instinct, 
and  without  long  labour  and  trouble,  the 
things  that  others  only  do  after  infinite 
devotion  and  deep  thought;  and  Julius  Caesar 
did  for  Rome,  in  the  way  of  expanding  her 
greatness  and  power,  what  perhaps  no  one 
else  could  ever  have  done. 

Without  Julius  Caesar  Rome  would  have 

crumbled  to  pieces.     Without  Julius  Caesar 

177 


Augustus 

Augustus  would  never  have  had  an  empire 
to  make. 

But  without  Augustus  that  empire  would 
never  have  been  made.  Nor  could  a  genius, 
in  the  sense  that  Julius  was  a  genius,  have 
succeeded  where  did  Augustus.  Rome  needed 
just  that  other  species  of  genius,  that  infinite 
capacity  for  taking  pains.  And  Augustus  had 
this  capacity  and  used  it  to  the  full,  from  the 
day  when  he  landed  in  Italy,  a  boy,  poor,  un- 
considered,  frail,  in  44  B.C.,  to  the  day  when 
he  died  at  Nola,  in  A.D.  14,  full  of  years  and 
deserving  the  plaudits  for  which  he  asked  on 
his  deathbed,  in  that  he  had  *  played  his  part 
well.' 


178 


CHAPTER  XI:  The  Meaning 
of  Empire 

WE  have  seen  how  Julius  Caesar 
made  the  Republic  impossible. 
Others  had  begun  the  task,  for 
their  own  ends;  he  achieved  it — well,  it  is 
difficult  to  say  whether  he  achieved  it  for 
Rome  or  for  himself.  As  we  have  said, 
he  worked  imperially;  he  could  not  do  other- 
wise, from  his  very  nature.  He  could  not 
but  see  to  the  very  end  of  the  problems  with 
which  he  dealt,  and  he  could  not  but  deal 
with  them;  it  was  instinctive  in  him. 

Those  others  who  preceded  him  worked 
consciously  for  themselves;  they  simply 
wanted  as  much  power  and  wealth  and  de- 
struction of  rivals  as  they  could  possibly 
effect.  Csesar  was  certainly  free  from  such 
ideals,  if  self-seeking  can  be  called  an  ideal. 
But,  unconsciously,  he  was  working  for  him- 
self, even  as  great  men  will.  They  identify 
their  ideals  with  themselves  and  think  of 
little  or  nothing  but  them.  They  may  realize 
that  they  are  leaving  much  to  posterity, 

but  it  is  for  posterity  to  make  what  it  can  of 

179 


Augustus 

the  legacy.  Nor  do  they  think  of  the  past. 
If  their  ideal  means  that  the  past  must  be 
neglected  or  even  overthrown,  they  neglect 
it  or  overthrow  it.  Reconciliation  and  com- 
promise are  not  for  them.  If  they  die  before 
their  work  is  finished,  so  much  the  worse  for 
the  work  and  the  world  in  general:  'Art  is 
long  and  life  is  short'! 

Such  was  surely  Julius  Caesar,  not  selfish 
in  character  or  in  his  behaviour  to  others, 
but  selfish,  without  knowing  it,  in  his  ideals, 
which  he  achieved  for  his  own  personal  satis- 
faction. It  is  because  they  were  good  and 
great  ideals  that  they  did  Rome  good  and 
brought  her  greatness. 

We  can  say  that  had  it  not  been  for  Julius 
and  his  work  Augustus  could  never  have 
made  such  an  empire  as  he  did;  but  we  must 
also  say  that  the  work  that  lay  before  Augustus 
was  all  the  harder  by  reason  of  all  that  Julius 
had  done. 

Augustus  was  not  selfish,  consciously  or 
unconsciously.  He  worked  both  for  the  past 
and  for  the  future,  not  only  seeing  what  he 
was  doing  in  its  full  extent,  but  also  seeing 

180 


The  Meaning  of  Empire 

how  it  fitted  in  with  the  past  and  how  it  could 
fit  in  with  the  future. 

And  his  was  not  a  case  of  a  task  too  long 
for  a  life.  Even  though,  through  one  mis- 
chance after  another,  he  did  not  and  could  not 
designate  his  actual  successor  until  within 
a  very  few  years  of  his  death,  a  successor 
would  certainly  have  been  found  to  take 
over  his  work  as  he  left  it  at  any  time  after, 
say,  23  B.C. 

Now  what,  after  all,  was  the  meaning  of 
all  these  changes,  and,  still  more,  what  is 
their  meaning  for  us? 

We  have  seen  the  obvious  explanation  of 
obvious  facts.  Rome  had  fallen  into  con- 
fusion; her  machinery  was  obsolete  for  her 
increasing  needs;  she  had  been  a  prey  to 
various  adventurers,  and  circumstances  had 
made  her  a  possible  prey  to  any  adventurer. 

One  supreme  Head  was  a  necessity;  and, 
for  the  work  of  that  Head  to  continue,  a 
permanent  system  had  to  be  devised.  It 
had  also  to  be  a  system  remodelled  in  some 
degree  on  the  old  system,  at  least  in  name, 

otherwise  there  was  still   enough  feeling  in 

181 


Augustus 

Rome  to  overthrow  it.  One  of  the  most  sig- 
nificant facts  in  the  career  of  Augustus  is  that, 
just  at  the  time  when  it  was  being  discussed 
what  title  he  should  have,  or,  rather,  what 
surname  (he  was  still  Octavian  then),  some 
flatterer  had  proposed  'Romulus,'  the  name 
of  the  first  king.  Octavian,  with  unerring 
instinct,  had  at  once  rejected  the  name; 
it  meant  kingship,  and  kingship,  in  Rome, 
meant  the  complete  overthrow  of  all  traditions. 
We  know  how  Octavian  made  it  hah*  of  his 
life's  work  to  respect,  revive,  and  glorify 
traditions;  his  choice  of  his  name,  'Augustus,' 
was  the  crowning  achievement  of  that  part  of 
his  work,  in  that  it,  so  to  speak,  sanctified 
his  deeds  and  also  his  person  as  the  means 
chosen  by  the  gods  for  the  furtherance  of 
Rome's  greatness. 

His  work  was  necessary  to  Rome,  and  the 
divine  sanction  was  necessary  to  his  work. 

But  the  real  meaning  of  his  work,  its  mean- 
ing for  us  as  well  as  for  Rome,  is  wider  and 
deeper. 

Rome  was  destined,  we  may  say,  to  expand, 

not  to  remain  a  self-contained  State,  to  civilize 

182 


The  Meaning  of  Empire 

the  whole  world,  *  sparing  those  thrown  under 
her  feet  and  beating  down  the  proud.'  She 
had  inherent  in  her  the  qualities  of  solidity, 
of  conquest,  of  assimilation.  She  had  proved 
this  from  her  first  years,  when  she  'Roman- 
ized' first  the  Latin  tribes  close  to  her  city 
walls,  then  the  Italians,  then  the  Greek 
colonies  in  the  south — in  a  word,  the  whole 
Italian  peninsula. 

Had  Rome  confined  her  power  to  the 
Italian  peninsula  she  need  never  have  changed 
her  Republic.  Apart  from  the  fact  that  it 
was — it  always  is  so  in  this  world — the  deeds 
of  individual  adventurers  that  gave  her  her 
great  oversea  possessions,  and  that  it  was 
the  conduct  of  these  adventurers  (and  the 
precedent  they  set  of  defying  the  Republic 
and  magnifying  themselves)  that  forced 
empire  upon  her — apart  from  these  things, 
empire  was  unavoidable  when  once  Rome 
adventured  outside  Italy.  For  she  could 
not,  under  any  but  the  Imperial  system,  have 
governed  her  foreign  possessions.  She  might 
have  kept  them  in  order  by  constant  harsh- 
ness of  rule  and  continual  fighting,  but  she 

183 


Augustus 

would  never  have  transformed  them  into 
*  Greater  Rome. ' 

*  Quite  so,'  will  be  the  answer;  'you  have 
told  us  how  bad  was  the  senatorial  provincial 
Government  and  how  good  was  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  Imperial  provinces;  you  have 
also,  for  that  matter,  shown  how  the  Re- 
public could  not  even  police  Rome  or  keep 
up  a  proper  fire-brigade. ' 

Yes,  these  are  '  obvious  facts. '  The  Roman 
Republic  did  degenerate;  the  average  pro- 
prsetor  or  proconsul  was  arrogant,  ignorant, 
avaricious,  and  generally  detestable  when 
once  he  found  himself  let  loose  for  a  year  on 
some  luckless  province.  And  he  had  nothing 
much  to  fear;  he  had,  as  one  Roman  saying 
has  it,  three  fortunes  to  make,  one  to  pay 
off  his  old  debts,  one  for  his  future,  and  one 
to  buy  off  the  court,  Equestrian  or  senatorial, 
that  would  almost  inevitably  try  him  at  the 
end  of  his  year's  command. 

Again,  it  is  quite  true  that  the  Emperor's 
men  were  well  chosen,  ambitious,  hard- 
working, not  unduly  avaricious  or  self-seek- 
ing. And  they  had  a  great  deal  to  fear! 

184 


The  Meaning  of  Empire 

Any  one  in  the  province  might  find  means 
of  conveying  a  complaint  to  Caesar's  ear, 
and  then  the  judgment  on  the  unfortunate 
governor  was  summary  and  exemplary ! 

The  obvious  facts  of  Roman  history  and 
experience  were  against  Republican  and  for 
Imperial  government. 

A  republic  cannot  govern  an  empire.  It 
cannot  even  govern  a  country,  unless  that 
country  is  reasonably  self-contained  and 
'  accessible. ' 

When  it  is  possible  for  all  the  affairs  of 
the  country  to  be  presented  clearly,  and 
without  the  likelihood  of  too  many  opinions 
being  needed,  before  the  Central  Board  of 
Authority — that  is  perhaps  the  best  way 
to  describe  the  administrative  part  of  the 
republic — then  it  is  possible,  and  even 
reasonable,  to  expect  that  clear  lines  can  be 
laid  down  and  clear  directions  given  to  the 
executive.  It  is  equally  possible  for  affairs 
to  be  dealt  with  and  for  the  country  to  be 
maintained  in  a  fairly  efficient  and  orderly 
state  if  there  is  a  really  effective  system  of 

185 


Augustus 

municipal  or  other  local  government.  That 
ensures  that  each  town  and  each  village  shall 
be  able  to  attend  to  its  own  business.  We 
can  even  conceive  oversea  local  government, 
and  that  supplies  an  argument  to  supporters 
of  the  republican  rtyime. 

But  in  practice  it  is  then  a  case  either 
of  the  State,  at  home  and  abroad,  resting 
stationary,  or  else  of  able  men  being  sent 
out  to  control  the  oversea  possessions.  And 
when  this  is  so  there  is  always  the  possible 
danger  that  some  crisis  from  within  or  without 
may  upset  the  state  of  affairs,  or  else  that  (as 
we  saw  in  the  case  of  Rome)  one  or  other  of  the 
foreign  governors  may  become  too  powerful. 
Either  way,  the  'empire'  risks  overthrow. 

The  reason  for  this  is  that  a  republic, 
from  its  very  nature,  is  the  most  centralized 
form  of  government  that  exists.  Everything 
has  to  be  referred  to  the  people,  or  at  least 
to  those  who  represent  the  people,  their 
Parliament  or  their  Cabinet.  There  is  no 
one  single  mind  or  single  will.  Questions 
must  be  discussed,  and  cannot  be  settled 

quickly.    Routine     work,     of     course,    goes 

186 


The  Meaning  of  Empire 

through  automatically;  but  routine  work 
hardly  means  *  empire/  or  anything,  indeed, 
beyond  the  everyday  practice  of  ordinary 
life. 

Then,  again,  when  the  people  hold  the 
power — and  the  more  genuine  the  power  of 
the  people,  and  not  of  a  few,  the  stronger 
is  the  argument — they  are  naturally  in- 
terested in  the  use  of  the  power.  They  do 
not  suffer  omissions;  everything  of  any 
importance  must  be  referred  to  them  and 
settled  by  them. 

Now  it  is  obvious,  first  of  all,  that  the 
people  are  concerned  chiefly  with  home  and 
local  affairs;  these  are  nearest  to  their 
interests,  and  therefore  appear  to  be  far 
more  important  than  anything  farther  afield. 
Secondly,  the  people  are  not  in  a  position, 
even  if  they  cared  to  do  so,  to  acquire  the 
experience  necessary  for  affairs  outside  their 
local  ken.  For  one  thing,  we  cannot  send  a 
whole  nation,  man  by  man,  to  live  and  work 
in  each  several  colony  or  foreign  province 
or  dependency  until  one  and  all  have  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  everything  to  do 

187 


Augustus 

with  all  their  foreign  possessions!  Thirdly, 
we  have  to  think  of  the  mind,  the  ability 
and  insight  of  the  people.  We  know  the 
proverb  that  the  strength  of  a  chain  is  its 
weakest  link! 

A  people,  as  a  people,  cannot  possibly  rise 
to  the  height  necessary  for  a  real  grasp  of 
great  external  questions  of  which  they  have 
no  intimate  national  knowledge;  nor  can 
they  follow  the  minute  and  intricate  details 
a  full  knowledge  of  which  is  vitally  necessary 
for  the  arrangement  of  certain,  and  especially 
foreign,  affairs. 

Specialists  are  always  required,  and  spe- 
cialists always  arise,  expert  at  their  work 
but  almost  completely  out  of  touch  with  the 
'man  in  the  street.'  Even  in  modern  times 
the  task  of  keeping  the  whole  people  fully 
acquainted  with  all  that  goes  on  and  all  that 
is  needed  outside  the  mother  country  is  not 
easy,  nor  can  it  be  done  thoroughly,  nor 
can  it  be  so  done  that  one  opinion  and  one 
decision  alone  may  prevail. 

And  so,  from  the  very  fact  that  a  republic 

is  so  centralized,  everything  beyond  the  im- 

188 


The  Meaning  of  Empire 

mediate  control,  we  may  say  beyond  the 
immediate  borders,  of  the  metropolis  has  to 
become  highly  decentralized. 

An  empire,  controlled  by  one  supreme 
head,  is  exactly  the  reverse.  We  have, 
naturally,  the  impression  of  entire  centraliza- 
tion, inasmuch  as  we  see  one  man  laying  down 
the  law  for  everything.  But  when  once 
everything  is  organized  that  one  man  simply 
becomes  the  head  of  a  hierarchy  in  which 
each  member  has  his  own  special  department. 
The  emperor  may  investigate  many  minute 
details  and  listen  to  many  personal  appeals; 
but  he  does  not  need  to  undertake  the  entire 
work  or  even  supervision  throughout  every 
corner  of  his  empire.  His  experts  see  to  that, 
and  they  are  responsible  to  him.  He  him- 
self, as  a  rule,  has  the  ability  and  the  ex- 
perience required  for  a  sufficient  grasp  of 
the  main  issues,  and  he  can  leave  the  details 
to  his  subordinates,  who  keep  entirely  in 
touch  with  him,  and  never  lose  that  touch  as 
they  would  if  responsible  to  a  body  of  men 
most  of  whom  would  be  ignorant  of  or  in- 
different to  the  special  issues,  and  all  of  whom 

189 


Augustus 

would  be  liable  to  differ  in  opinion,  the  one 
from  the  other,  over  any  one  issue. 

The  emperor  can,  of  course,  be  entirely 
responsible  to  the  nation  for  the  general  good 
conduct  of  affairs;  but,  so  long  as  he  ensures 
that,  the  nation  leaves  him  largely  to  his 
own  plans  and  actions,  and  busies  itself  with 
its  own  affairs. 

As  a  rule,  we  may  say  (though  this  is 
hardly  essential  to  the  argument)  that  under 
an  emperor  such  branches  of  life  as  literature, 
art,  science,  etc.,  are  more  highly  and  effect- 
ively developed  than  they  are  under  a  re- 
public; it  is  not  an  absolute  rule,  but  there  is 
at  least  a  tendency  that  way.  An  emperor 
can  patronize  and  encourage  such  things,  and 
the  people,  less  concerned  with  the  cares  of 
State,  have  more  leisure  to  devote  to  them. 

But,  however  that  may  be,  an  empire 
can  decentralize  safely;  a  republic  cannot. 
The  fact  is  that  a  more  or  less  absolute 
ruler  is  to  an  empire  what  a  business 
manager  is  to  a  business.  And,  just  as  a 
good  business  manager  organizes  and  estab- 
lishes a  system  under  which  the  business 

190 


The  Meaning  of  Empire 

may  continue  and  expand,  so  does  a  good 
emperor  organize  and  establish  his  system 
for  his  empire. 

And  this  is  exactly  what  a  republic  cannot 
really  do.  There  are  too  many  heads,  and 
they  are  not  all  experts !  Also,  one  has  as  much 
power  as  the  other,  and  this  provides  the 
elements  of  disagreement  and  indecision. 

Lastly,  once  the  system  is  well  established 
the  actual  personality  of  the  head  is  of  less 
importance  in  the  sense  that  the  system  can 
continue  even  though  he  may  show  less  energy 
or  ability  than  his  predecessor,  let  us  say. 
And  this  is  unquestionably  the  case  with  an 
empire  in  which  there  is  no  absolute  certainty 
of  'getting  the  best  man.' 

To  sum  up  the  whole  argument,  a  republic 
cannot  govern  an  empire — first  of  all  be- 
cause a  republican  regime,  which  entails 
the  practical  rule  of  many,  cannot  have  the 
breadth  of  view  or  the  grasp  and  knowledge 
of  varied  and  special  detail  required  by  the 
task;  and,  secondly,  because  the  'many' 
are  predisposed  to  think  of  their  own  local 

and  individual  needs  (they  have  little  interest 

191 


Augustus 

or  experience  beyond  ^  these)  and  to  neglect 
the  greater  issues  which  exist  outside. 

This  was  the  case  with  Rome  when  the  age 
of  the  Adventurers  began,  and  before  Rome 
had  the  burden  of  the  civilized  world  fully 
thrust  upon  her.  That  responsibility  was  of 
Julius  Caesar's  making;  but  he  bore  the 
burden  himself. 

And  the  work  of  Augustus  is  that  he 
systematized  that  burden  and  made  it  bear- 
able, not  for  the  old  Republic  nor  for  a 
declared  emperor,  but  for  an  Imperialized 
Commonwealth,  republican  in  name,  but 
imperial,  and  therefore  world-powerful,  in 
fact. 


192 


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